#because I would guess the virus would try to attach to potential hosts with either strong feelings of abandonment/attachment

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[crystalelemental]

Good morning, and I hope you all prepared yourself for this inevitable gripe-fest that’s about to occur!  That’s right folks, I am Back On My Bullshit and ready to rant!  It’s been so long since I’ve been this intensely irritated about something, but I guess Sailor Moon season 3 wanted to remind me what this was like.  Hysterically, they’re even keeping with the theme of 2017 that’s been ongoing since Atelier Shallie: I get it, you’re trying to market as a light-hearted fun adventure, but you can’t fuck up your heavy plotline on purpose because you’re trying to maintain an image goddammit!

Let’s start with this: season 3 is, by far, the best in the series so far.  Uranus and Neptune are spectacular characters, I finally get to see Pluto in action, and Saturn...god, we’ll get to that, but best.  No contest.  They even salvaged Chibi-Usa’s character.  Chibi-Usa!  Who was among my most disliked characters by the end of season 2!  She came back and was great!  That shouldn’t have been possible, but here we are.  The Professor and the Death Busters actually seemed entirely unique, and were a huge step up from previous villain groups.

But you’ll notice I started using past tense there.  Yes, unfortunately I have to use past-tense.  They’re still better than the others, but no longer as interesting.  It’s another issue of excellent setup but terrible resolution.  At the end of the day, the Professor is just infected by some virus monster, and his motivations are as vacuous as any enemy that came before.  Unleash strong nebulous evil force, ???, profit.  For such a goofy and fun character, his motives...pretty much didn’t exist.  I’m all for the whole parasite thing to establish drama, but it’s going to be a lot less engaging than if a character had their own agency and motives.  It’s like my issue with the “Lusamine was just infected with Nihilego’s toxins” argument.  It removes Lusamine as a character entirely, and insists that what we see was not a person, and their actions had no bearing on anything they personally wanted, it’s just things that happened.  And that’s way lamer than having the character be in control and acting for their own ends.  For the professor, it’s unfortunately just the infection working toward infecting the entire planet.

Which leads to other, major issues.  (1) Why is the holy grail there at all?  It can’t be designed for this inter-dimensional virus creature.  So what’s the point?  (2) If there was no point in that, what was the point in Uranus and Neptune’s quest?  I guess if the Messiah they were looking for got it, things would immediately turn in their favor, but... (3) What’s the point of the Silence?  Why is this a thing we have a name for?  I had assumed the whole time that there was precedent for this.  Like, someone knew what was going on, approximately, because something similar happened before.  Given they know what to do to combat it, it seemed like everyone had an inkling of what was going on, but were lacking in specifics.  But this nonsense about a Messiah of Silence?  It’s just a virus.  It might not even be sentient, beyond manipulating the sentience of those infected.  I doubt the virus is like “Ah yes, the Messiah of Silence, who will draw us into this world so we can do vague but evil things to it.”  None of these elements make a lick of sense anymore.  They were cool as a setup, but I feel like it’s wasted potential.  Especially considering that the outer scouts gave you the optimal setup already.

...you know, before we even started watching this, Callie told me that Hotaru would be my absolute favorite.  And when we finally get there, what do they give me?  A sickly child, who tends to dress all in black, has burns all over her body from an accident she was in, idolizes an athlete who was also sickly in his youth because precious, just wants to make friends but has weird blackout moments where people around her get hurt so they shun her, and has turned around from being almost completely closed off from the world to making close friends with Chibi-Usa and the sailor scouts.  She’s the best.  Easily my favorite.  Not even a contest.  Well, turns out, she’s Sailor Saturn, and the Guardian of Destruction.  Can apparently blow up planets, so...that’s awesome.  Her weapon is apparently even called the Glaive of Silence, or at least that’s what Michiru had called it at one point.  For the latter part of the season, the outer scouts are basically shitting themselves, knowing that they either manage to kill Hotaru before she awakens as Saturn, or the world could be destroyed.  Obviously, since the other scouts are friends with Hotaru, it creates that conflict again between inner and outer planet scouts around an “ends justify the means” approach, or the altruistic “We have to save everyone” mentality.  And that’s great!  I love that setup.  I’m all for this kind of conflict, and how it hits harder because Chibi-Usa and Pluto are on opposite sides.  Excellent setup!

...terrible execution.  Hotaru’s issue wasn’t that she’s Saturn, silly!  It’s that she’s also infected with the virus, and becomes Mistress 9!  She’s a vaguely evil mastermind trying to summon the nebulous Pharaoh 90 virus, which is apparently a planet from another dimension?, into this world to infect the whole planet and...not really destroy it, but eliminate all life or make everything a host for its virus self?  Which Mistress 9 and the Daimons may be a part of?  Objective unclear; listen, why not roll with Hotaru as the final boss?  If Saturn is so intense and terrifying, that’s a better angle.  You keep building the conflict for Chibi-Usa and the inner planets vs. the outer planets, and your resolution is easy to make a happy one since Chibi-Usa and Hotaru are friends.  The outer scouts can still insist this has to go with conflict, but ultimately it’s the friendship the inner scouts developed with the Messiah of Silence that causes her character to make an active choice to keep things as they are, and avert it.  I’m all on board for Uranus and Neptune acknowledging that there was no Messiah of Light, and that the good ending had to come about from their own actions.  That’s fantastic.  But you know what would’ve been also great?  If there was no messiah for either side.  If the whole Messiah thing was just both sides trying to pinpoint a champion with the power and ability to carry out their own goals.  Give the professor an honest reason to want the world to reach its end, and you’ve got the ideal setup: a father who manipulates his child to destroy the world for his own ends, massive conflict among the two groups of scouts, a positive and happy resolution with Saturn through connection and friendship, and a legitimate reason to seek the grail and to have a name and concept for all this stuff since it happened in-universe.

We do not get that.  Obviously.  I wouldn’t be here if we had.  Instead, we run with the virus angle, the grail calls Pharaoh 90 to their world, and the only thing that wins the day is that the Professor and Usagi call to Hotaru and get her to awaken as Saturn, who then blows up the virus planet.  (1) Not Chibi-Usa?  The one pretty much designed to be the point of connection for Hotaru?  ...alright.  (2) This could’ve been avoided by just...not handing over the Grail, Usagi.  Callie said Uranus and Neptune were being jerks for fighting Usagi over her decision here, but they’re super in the right.  Had you not done that, the human connection still would’ve made it to Hotaru, only the death virus planet wouldn’t have been called, and Saturn wouldn’t have had to die and be reincarnated, which is really my biggest issue here.

WHY IS HOTARU A BABY NOW?!  I HATE this reset-button shit, and I’m having trouble thinking of a time I’ve been more upset by it.  Hotaru is the best character for me, bar none.  The struggles she has going on, the difficulties she’s faced, and her entire arc being about establishing those connections and making friends to overcome loneliness and fear, all of it is excellent.  And their resolution?  Their big way to fix this?  Let’s have her die and come back as a baby who is fine now.  Also her dad’s memories are all gone, except for the ones about how he has a kid, so no one will even know the difference!  Hooray!  Fuck you.  Fuck you, that’s stupid and awful.  You not only killed the best character, which is something that’s happened to I’m pretty sure everyone in the series at this point and they got better from, but you reincarnated her as a baby so there’s no hope to get this character back even.  All in the name of “We had to have a happy ending for this character, so we just got rid of all the bad stuff that happened to her.”  It’s lazy, it’s stupid, and it’s a complete rejection of a far more interesting conclusion where Hotaru gets to recover and move on.  Not to mention, if Saturn’s so damn strong, bringing her back as a completely healthy baby means she’s gonna be absurd.  Haruka and Michiru were already stronger than the inner scouts by a noticeable margin, and Saturn apparently had enough power to make them terrified of her just waking up, even when they had Pluto on their side.  Keeping the injured version of Hotaru not only keeps the difficulties she had and her character in tact, but also serves as a limiter.  She’s not an instant-win condition; she has physical limitations and isn’t always going to be at full strength.  But no, baby version now.  Maybe because she’s younger she’ll be weaker or can’t use her full power or something arbitrary like that.

I am so goddamned salty about this.  I get really attached to my favorites, and this seriously feels like we’ve just removed the best one.  I know she’s alive.  I know a lot of traits are probably going to stay the same, and when she inevitably comes back and is a regular scout I will love her to death.  But this is such a bad way to handle the resolution for this character’s conflict.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a figure to find.