I won’t be making one of these for every episode, but now that the first episode has aired (I will probably make another at the end of the season which should be about a year from now due to the Bi-Weekly schedule), I wanted to at least give some opinions on it after watching the first episode. I did stay up until 6AM to watch as I was just super excited and hyped.
This won’t be long as I mostly just want to summarize some opinions, but in short, I actually really enjoyed it. I have some concerns, but I’ll get to those shortly. I didn’t mind the CG transformation at all (I would say the only thing that seemed off was her arm at the very start of it and how long it seems to be which worries me a bit on how much will be packed into each episode. Neither bothers me enough to take away from my enjoyment however), though, that could be because I tend to be less picky with art stuff in the first place.
It was nice to see Usagi’s original voice actress back, but her voice was so much more expressive than any of Usagi’s facial expressions which I really don’t fault the VA for, but for some reason the lack of emotion the artists did with Usagi’s face. And mostly just when her eyes were opened–she seemed much more expressive when her eyes were closed which seems really odd? I’m hoping they were just worried about making everything look nice and this will be improved a lot later.
I also noticed a lot of stuff I was hearing didn’t really feel like it was being said. A lot of translations felt more copy and paste versus implying the context which made it seem a bit rushed? I don’t know tons of Japanese (mostly random words and phrases), but I did see other people saying similar. One of the bigger ones to confuse me was when one of Usagi’s friends was talking then looked up and said something else that was translated as if she was responding to something someone else said and I’m still confused. I have an idea of what was meant, but…
Anyway, I really love the new opening a lot. Both the song and the actual opening are great. I do not care as much for the ending, but I tend to be more picky with ending songs so… My only “complaint” against the opening was some of the editing with the subtitles. For whatever reason, the individual lines for the characters are kind of forced together and it’s especially bad with Makoto’s and Minako’s lines are they list Minako’s first and Makoto’s second and it seems they just translated them as one full sentence versus two different lines.
And on some final notes:
1. While I think the roses around each new character introduction is a bit odd/sudden, I also think they and all the art inserts (Ending, Title screen, Middle of Episode ones) are super pretty.
2. It does seem to be more Manga-based which… I have mixed feelings on. The Manga felt kind of rushed for me and I didn’t care too much for the end of the first season (Usagi killing herself with a sword–just felt too sudden to me among other things). Not that I preferred what happened in the Anime’s ending (so much death T~T), but the latter definitely pulled my heart strings more than the former where I wasn’t entirely sure what to feel. There are things I liked about the Manga more than the Anime (such as explaining why the focus on Japan/where each general was while a different one was “working”, SuperS is much better, No Seiya trying to hit on Usagi when she already has a boyfriend, and Usagi’s romance with Mamoru are just a few examples), but the actual pacing was very disappointing to me.
3. Haruna’s completely different color palette, Shingo’s much lighter hair color, and Mako’s lighter hair completely throw me off. The first two more so than Makoto’s, but I’m not entirely sure how I feel about these changes yet.
Now to just try and be patient for the next episode T~T 2 weeks to go… I don’t know if I will watch them again live/simulcast, but it will definitely be what I look forward to each day. The next one will be airing the day after my birthday so yay~