My siblings and I watched the first three episodes of this several times as a child. We would rent it from Blockbuster, along with things like Speedracer, Serendipity the Pink Dinosaur, same 5 episodes of Sailor Moon and the 3 movies. Over and over and over...And I wanted to look back at it after...
1) A journalist looking for the lost pilot
to the American Sailor Moon show and found the pilot to “Team Angel”. https://youtu.be/gGLGYyWJAKI . And as cringey as that was, 5-9 year old me would probably have loved it.
2) I listened to the Magical Girl History episodes of Love and Justice: A Serious Sailor Moon Podcast . @loveandjusticepod
You can’t tell me Jewel Riders wasn’t at least partially inspired by magical girl anime.
But my main takeaways have been:
1) Even if some of the character designs are cool, the animation is awful.
2) There are two English versions. And the only difference between the two appears to be that in one she is Starla, and the other she is Gwenevere (I grew up with the latter). Same theme songs for both, with different names inserted. That sounds like the Mandela Effect.
3) The villain’s name is Lady Kale. KALE! I understand that it’s Gaelic. And supposedly it means man in Hawaiian. But I’m not going to unsee the leafy green vegetable.