Sailor Moon SuperS: The Movie
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Caution: spoilers!

Preceded by Sailor Moon S: The Movie

This is the third of three films based on the series "Sailor Moon"; specifically, it's set sometime during the fourth season, Sailor Moon SuperS. It was originally released in Japan in 1995, but I probably first saw it on Toonami in 2001. I watched it on DVD and wrote this review in 2015, after having re-watched the fourth season on Hulu.

The movie begins with a boy playing a tune on his pipe (Pied Piper style), and leading a bunch of hypnotized children onto a gondola that flies away. Meanwhile, another boy watches all this. This is the one scene that I've always remembered from the first time I saw the movie, because I really liked the tune, Sanji no Yosei (The Three O'Clock Fairy), which I think was one of the earliest mp3s I ever downloaded (back in my file-sharing days). Anyway, after that we have the movie's opening theme (the English dub version, which I really enjoyed hearing again, after watching the show in Japanese on Hulu the last two years). The theme song is set to some cray-cray adorbs scenes of each of the Sailor Scouts when they were little kids, Rini's age. Then we move on to a scene of Serena, Rini, Amy, Raye, Mina, and Lita all baking cookies together (and naturally, Rini and Serena arguing). Amy and Lita both share cookie-related memories from their childhood. (Incidentally, all of this is incredibly nostalgic to me, even if I didn't remember anything beyond the opening scene, because I get to hear familiar old voices, familiar old names, and everything. The Japanese version of the show is so much better than the dub, but... ah, nostalgia!)

Anyway, later, Rini is on her way to give her cookies to Darien (man it's weird not to think of him as Mamoru!) when she sees a boy looking in the window of a candy store. She goes over to talk with him, and learns his name is Peruru. And she gives her cookies to him. Meanwhile, Serena goes to give her cookies to Darien, and they hear a news report on the radio about children disappearing all over the world. That night, the same pipe music begins to play, and Rini is among the children who are led to a gondola. Diana wakes Serena up and gets her to follow Rini, and before long Raye, Amy, Mina, and Lita show up. Serena manages to wake Rini up, and they all follow the hypnotized children. The piper, whose name is Pupulan, uses candies that turn into monsters to fight the girls, who then transform into the Sailor Scouts and fight back. Tuxedo Mask eventually shows up to help, but he's soon defeated. Peruru also shows up to help, and he argues with Pupulan, who manages to get Rini back, and takes her and the other children away.

After the Sailor Scouts get an unconscious Darien back home, Peruru takes them in his gondola to a castle in the sky, where they'll have to fight Pupulan and a couple other guys, who are all servants of someone named Badiyanu. She's a giant woman with like vampire teeth or whatever, and she's collecting children to put to sleep so she can harvest their dream power, to grow a Black Dream Hole that she plans to use to swallow the Earth. Anyway, the Sailor Scouts seem to be outmatched by Badiyanu's servants (and their candy), until Sailors Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto show up. (This is really unexpected, since they weren't even in the fourth season of the show, they left at the end of season three. But it was nice to see them again. And I found it amusing that when they introduced themselves, they sounded to me like beauty pageant contestants.) Anyway... they defeat the servants, but Badiyanu has Rini, so they all have to try to get her back. Which is pretty difficult, particularly because she's got a damn black hole as a weapon. But Sailor Moon is actually a bit more badass than usual (even if it is pretty silly that she powers up by eating one of Rini's cookies). And of course, she finally gets Rini back and defeats Badiyanu. (As if there were ever any doubt.)

And... that's it' I've spoiled the whole movie. Sorry about that. But it was fun, you should totally watch it.