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Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Opening
I must say this is probably my favourite deleted scene selection. Those scene shows as something that we are sorely deprived of, all 5 Senshi in their school uniform hanging out and enjoying their daily life!
These were shot originally for the opening, and each scene shows their individual characteristics:
Minako: Being an idol, but not only that, but being very patient with children. Not only does she not mind giving her autograph, but she even waves the children off with the rest of the Senshi instead of just politely dismissing them. The children ran off already but she still waved at them, including her friends. This is what I would imagine post Final Act Senshi hang out to be. The group is so used to spending time with Minako outside that they all just know how to be natural in supporting Minako when a fan recognizes her.
Rei: Classie Rei just being very aware of her surrounding and taking action when she sees someone in need. In this case being that she stands up to give her seat to a elderly lady and offering to store her items for her on the shelf.
Makoto: Similar to Rei, but with the emphasis on her strength. It’s really cute to see how comfortable she is with her strength, especially at the end of the gif you see Usagi flexing her muscle probably in complimenting Makoto.
Ami: Highlighting her knowledge and ease in communicating in a foreign language. We could assume it’s English, but honestly it could also be any other language that’s happening in the scene. What’s awesome is seeing the rest of the Senshi so in awe of Ami’s skills and applauding her, which only makes Ami flustered. You can even see the tourist dude enjoying the attention his helper is receiving.
Usagi: the Usagi “centric” one is the one pulled from the actual opening. You just see snap shots of the girls goofing around with each other. I always thought the last scene looks like Usagi’s is sneezing, but now looking closer I think they were doing a “hold your breath contest,” or just trying to get Usagi to burst into laughter, because you can see Ami, Mako, Rei all had their cheeks puffed up. I’m assuming Minako’s is also like that but she’s turned in an angle I can’t really tell.
What’s also really great is in the scenes, even though there is always one of the Senshi highlighted, the girls are all still part of the experience, and each of them taking the main spot gets the recognition they deserve in doing the deed in the scene. I really wish we have more of those moments within PGSM where Minako gets to be a part of the group!
Sorry for the extremely long wait. I think those gifs took me an hour to make because of tumblr size limit and quality control, plus my computer was giving me issues.
Sailor Moon · The Miracle 4-D (2018) || PGSM (2003)
Okay. I’m on a random tangent and I can’t stop myself.
I just want to say I love how this casual Senshi interaction scenes is quite accurate in depicting what I actually see to be the 5 Senshi’s dynamic.
Obviously everyone would be quite close to each other, but there’s also some minor cliques in it that Minako actually does kinda default to Makoto or Rei in casual interactions, and so is placed often close to at least one of them while Usagi in on the other side because Usagi probably will always be starstruck and want to stick close to the idol whenever Minako finds time to be with the group. It also totally makes sense to me the Minako would have more “fun” with Makoto and the two of them would joke around in really good companionship, as shown by Makoto lending her baseball cap to Minako. Ami rarely defaults to be put in a situation close to Minako, which if you think closely, those two never had a one-on-one moment in the series, even in the Special Act.
If you think I wasn’t gonna gif this, then YOU DON’T KNOW ME AT ALL!
As much as I say I love pgsm overall, my top favourite and biggest investment is the character develop the story provides, and that means I actually pay attention a lot more to when the girls are interacting as part of their daily life instead of when they are transformed.
Ever since I first laid eyes on this sequence of individual character intro, I fell in love with it! It’s a great way to tell you who the Senshi are, and everyone probably gets what this all means if they’ve had prior exposure to Sailor Moon in some other media format. The only one that would raise any eyebrows would be Minako.
BUT. Once you get to know the pgsm!Senshi as themselves, separate from manga or anime, I find the imagery of those scenes VERY interesting. It’s interesting because some of them I actually don’t think aligned with how the characters are portrayed and developed over the series.
Usagi - Okay, no complains about this one. Be in her pink and fluffy bedroom, happy and cheerful! 120% Usagi for sure.
Ami - Typical, there’s a book. True that if Ami is engaging in any activity outside of her home, she would still have a book with her! But that’s assuming she would take the effort to engage something so leisurely. How Ami is portrayed pre-Senshi is she would isolate herself intentionally and read in a corner. She eats sandwiches because she can read and eat at the same time, and knowing this Ami, probably also because she prefers being frugal and saving all that money for med school! If she goes out, she’s gonna be at the library. It would have made so much more sense if we see Ami in a library, smiling shyly and quietly while introducing her Senshi form instead.
Rei - Shrine. Predictable and accurate. No complains, Keiko looks great and I love her so much I can’t love her more. I mean to be 120% Rei, she should be glaring, but it’s the intro, we can’t scare kids off right here.
Makoto - OKAY. HERE WE GO. While we keep playing up the tomboyness Makoto shows, she has NEVER consciously chose to dress “manly.” Yeah we don’t see her in dresses or skirts normally, but she also never actually looked like she was trying to imitate men’s style. Just more unisex stuff or less fluffy and whatnot. Makoto knows how to dress and make it fashionable (except for that one toque with the overly large pom pom on her head) , and a whole big part of Act 8 was Makoto showing her side of warmth and actual love for cute things, and throughout the series also being okay with embracing her more feminine side and have a lover instead of just being considered as the tall brute among her peers. So yes, I actually have issue with the look they gave Mako in the opening sequence. The baseball cap is highly unnecessary (except for being use as a prop later), we know she’s playing baseball because she has a glove and threw out a baseball! But also, I love that she could the Senshi version of herself. Like’s who’s throwing her????!!!!! lol
Minako - Minako is Minako. There’s nothing I could really nitpick on this, though I do feel like we sorely lack opportunities of seeing idol!Minako interact with her fans besides Act 23 when she was with the children the hospital. We don’t know if Minako actually prefers to be more standoff-ish and embracing the celebrity feels when interacting with her more mature fans, or if she’s actually likes to interact more directly. It’s just something to note. And obviously Minako would never showcase her Senshi to the public. :P
Venus’ Naruto running aside… I find it VERY INTERESTING how the Senshi were ordered in this sequence, and also how Moon, Jupi, Mars and Mercury sped up and zoomed forward, but Venus was just constant… Never thought much about it till this point, but do you think this is the director/editor’s hint of what’s to come with Venus’ fate in the series…? Yikes. Bad thoughts.
Moving along!
So sequence wise, my thoughts are that is a representation of how quick everyone acts when faced with a situation, which doesn’t mean that Mercury and Venus are slow, it just means they are less impulsive and likes to analyze before jumping into action. Usagi is HUGELY emotionally driven so she reacts first, and then Makotos is like “OH WAIT USAGI” and instantly follows after. Rei clicks her tongue and comment how typical this is for them, and thinks one, or maybe two steps ahead to drag Usagi and Makoto out of the shit they are in, while Mercury follows behind to quickly figure out all the info to relay to everyone else. While the aloof leader Venus is just observing what the fucking hell her amateur team is doing because none of them seem to have a brain for battle and they don’t have their fucking past life memories, therefore the knowledge and experience, so she waits and then jumps in at the right moment to give an order and kick butt.
Also, Mercury…. who runs with their fingers spread wide open?????
I’m imagining Sailor Moon going “WHEEEEEEEEEEEE” as she fly passes.
Also, I always wondered why did the background colour transitioned from blue to red, only to go back to blue when the stripped comes in as part of Usagi’s sailor fuku collar flap thing...
Anyone has thoughts?
And sidenote, is this an appropriate time for me to bring this back?
PHEW. I MADE IT. Gonna pause here.
So something I tried and couldn’t capture via gif, I chuckled at how you can see the girls wiggle side-to-side a bit when the platform they stand on stops and the inertia continues... it’s most obviously with Mars and Mercury. lololololol
Also the outro to the opening song had a “slideshow” of 10 pictures of the moon... We get it, Moon, but can’t we just have more Senshi instead of boring scenic pictures with a moon in them????? Ah well.
Another thing I really loved about the opening that cannot be capture by gif is the switch of voiceover audio whenever we see the Senshi singing. I loved that they actually overlayed the girls’ singing to add to Sae’s singing. It gives a more interactive feel to it, if that makes sense?
Did not get to talk about song lyrics this time. Might do it another time. I’ll leave it at this for now!
