Saturday, March 13, 2010

Sailor Moon SuperS the Movie: Black Dream Hole


Bishoujo senshi Sera Mun supa S - Sera nain senshi shuuketsu! Black-Dream-Hole no kiseki; Animated fantasy, Japan, 1995, D: Hiroki Shibata, S: Kotono Mitsuishi, Kae Araki, Aya Hisakawa, Michie Tomizawa

Usagi and Chibiusa are competing over who will bake the best cookies. Around the world, cases of disappearances of children at night have been reported. Chibiusa meets Peruru, a strange boy with a magic flute. It turns out he is one of the members of the mysterious team who hypnotize children with their flute and makes them sleep-walk right into their flying boat, who are then deported to a witch who places them in a container where they will sleep indefinitely and create a dream black hole that will swallow the whole Earth. Chibiusa is also kidnapped. However, Peruru realizes that what he is doing is wrong and helps the Sailor Moon and the other Sailor Senshi to stop the black hole and return all the children back to their homes.

The last of the three anime “Sailor Moon” films, “Dream Black Hole” is, just like the season it is set in – SuperS – unjustifiably neglected and considered among the “lesser” contributions to the imaginative saga. However, just like the previous two anime films – “The Promise of the Rose” and “Hearts in Ice” – this is also a quirky, shrill and untrammeled story that is never bound by rigid reality. In fact, just like the SuperS manga and anime series, this is also the most imaginative, dreamy and ‘free’ display of some subconscious elements that stimulate that neglected right side of our brain. The constant arguments between Usagi and Chibiusa do tend to reduce the enjoyment value whereas the whole story follows the same ‘good vs. evil’ formula as all the previous “Sailor Moon” seasons and films to such an extent that it starts to become slightly exhausted and tiresome towards the finale – which ends just like all previous finales. Still, at least two moments are simply genius – the scene where Mamoru is sitting in his apartment and all of a sudden hears a knock on the door and Usagi’s words behind it, jokingly saying: “Courier service! I’m bringing you the love of your life!”, upon which he chuckles. And the other scene is when the Outer Senshi show up on the flying ship and learn about the plan of their nemesis who wants all the children to stay kids indefinitely; Sailor Neptune comments with: “What nonsense! Imagine just what the kids are missing if they never grow up”, upon which Sailor Uranus blushes and turns her head away. Likewise, despite the standard “Sailor Moon” battles, some of them still have those small moments of tour-de-force inspiration (the disintegration of the Sailor outfits in the finale, leaving the Senshi naked and colored with psychedelic colors), which are great even though they may last for only 5 seconds

Grade:++

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