#makes sense though seeing as she has the most lore after Usagi

[sailorfailures]

October 22nd is Minako Aino/Sailor Venus’s birthday!

So how can you celebrate?

♀ Rewatch or reread your favourite Venus-centric chapter, episode, or musical! She might’ve been the last of the Sailor Team to be introduced, but she was actually the first Sailor Soldier ever - Sailor V. Prominent 90s anime episodes include episode 036, one of the earliest Venus-centric episodes, where she take Usagi out for a haircut to cheer her up; episode 042, where we finally learn of Minako’s (anime-canon) past working in London as Sailor V with her mentor, Katarina; episode 078, where the rest of the Sailor Team falls ill with a mysterious flu and it’s up to Minako to “help” nurse them to health; episode 100, where an old unrequited flame gets Minako rethinking her life goals and considers quitting her duty as a Sailor Soldier; episode 114, where Minako gets a shot at becoming a real idol, but has to compete with the villain Mimete; episode 141, where Minako goes on two dates at the same time and reaps the reward of her own hubris; and episodes 175 and 192, where Minako gets even closer to realising her idol dreams with some industry experience.

Did you know Minako has her very own manga series? In fact, it was written before the Sailor Moon manga even existed! Codename: Sailor V is much shorter, more comedic, and action-oriented than PGSM, and elaborates not only on Minako’s character and role before meeting the other Guardians but also the history of the Silver Millennium and the Dark Kingdom. If you were disappointed with Minako’s under-utilised role in the 90s anime, now is the perfect time to give the 2003 live-action a shot, where she has a much more prominent and plot-heavy role.

♀ Sailor Venus has several official image songs across different canons you can play for her big day, particularly in the live action, where she is a professional idol:

90s anime: Anata no Yume wo Mita Wa [“I’ve Seen Your Dream”]; Setsunakute Ii [“It’s Fine Even if it Pains Me”]; ROUTE VENUS; Ai no Megami no HOW TO LOVE [”How To Love per the Goddess of Love”] Live Action: C'EST LA VIE ~ Watashi no Naka no Koi Suru Bubun [“C’est la Vie ~ The Loving Side Within Me”]; Katagoshi ni Kinsei [“Venus Over My Shoulder”]; ROMANCE; Kiss!² Bang!² [“Kiss! Kiss! Bang! Bang!”]; Sayonara ~ SWEET DAYS [“Farewell ~ Sweet Days”]; HAPPY TIME, HAPPY LIFE; I’M HERE Crystal: HEART ga Tonjau Sora Dakara [“As It’s the Sky My Heart Soared Through”] Musicals: TRADITIONAL THE GRACE ~Ai no Arashi~ [“Traditional the Grace ~Storm of Love~”] Her voice actress Rika Fukami also recorded a cover of Shocking Blue’s hit song, Venus, inspired by the Bananarama cover that popularized the song in Japan. The opening bars of their version were also referenced in many of Minako’s official video game themes.

Here’s a playlist of all these songs and other Sailor Venus BGM cues!

♀ Indulge in some of Minako’s favourite foods! Minako is living that carb life, as her faves are ramen, gyoza (potsticker dumplings), and curry rice. Order out or challenge yourself to cooking them from scratch - just don’t include any mushrooms, which are Minako’s least favourite food.

♀ Minako is a very goal-oriented person, even if she’s not always the most focused, and many of her hobbies revolve around her dream of becoming an idol. Topmost, of course, is singing! She’s loved to sing and dance ever since she was a child. Learn a new dance routine - YouTube is a great start - or go clubbing with some friends. Minako is also particularly relevant to karaoke in the live action; why not gather a group and hit a karaoke bar?

Minako’s pride and joy is her long, silky hair, which she takes great care of. If yours is in need of some TLC, treat it to a fancy hair mask, or make your own from simple ingredients. Alternatively, if you’ve been looking for a sign to make a drastic hairstyle change, chop, or colour, this might be that sign, as Minako is a huge advocate for how changing your hairstyle can change your outlook.

She might not seem the type, but Minako has also been shown to enjoy knitting. Maybe she uses these skills to contribute to her massive collection of stuffed toys? Pick up those needles and finish that project you’ve been putting off or learn how to start from some videos or a local meet-up. If you’re an expert, you could even try a Sailor Moon pattern.

Minako is a video game junkie, which makes sense, considering her alter-ego stars in one. She seems particularly fond of racing games, but also side-scrollers and fighting games; why not give a new indie title a try, or play as Minako herself in one of the many retro Sailor Moon games for the Super Nintendo and other systems? (Personally, my favourite is this arcade brawler.)

After being an idol, and (maybe) her duty as a Guardian, Minako’s highest priority is volleyball. She had an incredible talent for the game even before discovering her super-human abilities as Sailor V. Why not hire some equipment for a casual game with some friends on the beach? (Though Minako wouldn’t judge you if you just played virtual volleyball instead.)

♀ Dress like Minako for a day! She had the widest variation in fashion styles amongst the show’s characters, ranging from sporty, to preppy, to “cool”, to girlish, to eccentric high fashion. In colder weather she loved scarves and oversized jackets, but in warmer weather she opted for simple, breezy, minimalist looks. She favoured vests, and shorts/flowy, non-restrictive skirts so she was always ready to leap into action. The consistent element linking her different styles is her tendency to layer, layering jackets over vests over turtlenecks, layering necklaces over sun-dresses over summery blouses, etc.

Her one mainstay accessory was her iconic red hair-bow, though she actually did swap it out to coordinate it with her outfit at times, and it was a pale yellow when she was a Princess. She started wearing the ribbon to impress a boy, but after he turned out to be a monster - uh, literally - she decided to keep wearing it because she liked it; so if something you used to love wearing has been tainted by a toxic relationship, you can Love and Beauty Shock it into something you wear for yourself. (By the way, before she wore the bow, she used a simple red scrunchie.)

(Manga scan credits: sailormusic.net, MissDream.org)

As Sailor Venus, she started with simple yellow/orange studs that later became red and wore orange flats (often styled as d’orsays) with ankle-straps. Her nail polish was a fresh tangerine, and in her attack Love and Beauty Shock we can see she wears a pale orange/coral/peach lipgloss. Her image colours are orange, yellow, and a navy blue accent.

... And of course, Minako never missed an opportunity to go big or go home; so if you have an over-the-top campy stage costume just lying around...

♀ Match with your BFF twin for the day!

♀ Take up the sword!

♀ Line up a date. Or two. On the same day. (But don’t complain if you get caught!)

♀ Fav and read some Sailor Venus fanart and fanfic on sites like Pixiv, Twitter, and AO3 - or contribute your own new content! Don’t forget to tag!

Feel free to reply and reblog with your own ideas of how you’re going to celebrate Mina’s day!

Happy Birthday, Minako!

[inkyturtle]

Yojimbo Arc Review

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention: I finally saw the Yojimbo arc the other night.

I have a lot to say about it.

I’m understanding why some people debate the validity of most of the season 5 arcs as canon: most of them feel like made for TV movies whose tone are so far removed from the canon that it seems like they don’t belong. This isn’t me trying to scream ‘THESE AREN’T CANON!!!’, but I can see why people would come to that conclusion. I have a hard time seeing most of them as anything but bonus movies. 

Like...compare them to those movies that are made for an anime (those DBZ ones I saw as a kid come to mind). They have aspects of the canon lore in them, and sometimes aspects of them are integrated into the canon if the series is ongoing, but their tone, themes, and sometimes characterization seem so far removed from the story itself that it’s hard to view it as anything but a ‘what-if’ scenario. I felt this especially with the Monster Arc, and I sort of feel it with Yojimbo too. However where I think it was to the mosnter arc’s detriment, it was to Yojimbo’s benefit.

Yojimbo is not a turtles story, it’s Usagi’s story. I don’t say that as a complaint or insult, either. The episodes wouldn’t have worked if the turtles were the main focus, I feel. It has an entire different feel from a regular turtles episode/arc, so making Usagi the focus actually helped it a lot more than it would have hurt it. It almost feels as if, on the surface, it could be one of those ‘pitch pilot’ episodes, but you can tell it’s just a love letter to Usagi Yojimbo and an homage to classic samurai movies.

I had a lot of gripes with it, though most of them revolve around the turtles and not Usagi or anything from his world. I initially thought the turtles being summoned was dumb, but then I realized it’s one of the only ways it could have made sense, and that’s also likely how a lot of these sorts of crossovers go. 

I initially thought the turtles being forced to fight Usagi was just a flimsy excuse to get them all in one place, but when they continued to use it I had no problem with the initial encounter in retrospect. One of those things that makes you look back on it and go ‘oh shit nevermind that was actually a good idea.’ With the way the arcs in the season had been going I expected it to be a one-off thing, so I’m glad it wasn’t; it would have been a blemish on the arc otherwise.

The turtles’ maturity and lack of common sense bugged the shit out of me though, and it’s probably one of my biggest ‘complaints’ about the arc. The fact that they’re in a new world and they don’t trust Usagi, I can get that. However there felt like a lot of idiot ball holding in the first two episodes to me. Considering Leo’s knowledge on kappa, you’d assume he’d know at least a little about Tanuki as tricksters. Not a lot of people with cursory knowledge about Japanese folklore are aware that kappa eat your internal organs suck out your soul through your ass, so it would stand to reason he’s the type who didn’t limit his knowledge strictly to kappa. 

And even if he didn’t (and I’m willing to secede to that), he’s supposed to be the brother that’s good at assessing the situation and making sound decisions about what to do. You can argue that he doesn’t trust Usagi, but I find it kind of reckless and out of character for both him and Donnie to just jump into the fight and risk endangering everyone without at least looking at their options. To be fair, that’s a problem I’ve had with Leo since season 4; it seems a lot of his characterization and experience gets thrown out the window for the sake of making the plot go where the writers want it to.

And to further add onto how stupid this is, given the experiences the turtles went through in seasons prior you would think that, when sent to another world with completely different laws and customs, even if you didn’t trust the locals you would at least assume they know about the creatures and customs of the world more than you do. I could see the turtles from an earlier season making these sorts of mistakes, but after four seasons of this shit they should have more common sense. Again though, that goes back to me feeling season 4 was mishandled (almost as if there was a largely different writing staff behind it), and this is just another side affect of that. That’s a whole different discussion/rant.

The only other complaint I have is the part in the last episode where the turtles realize they’re no longer under Jei’s control. I would have saved that conversation for after they had turned on Jei, and left it a surprise for the audience. It sort of felt like a wasted opportunity for a twist, as well as like they were holding the audience’s hand. You can argue that it’s a kid’s show, but considering seasons prior executing stuff like that way better (Parasitica comes to mind) I think kids don’t need that sort of guidance to get what’s going on. It just took a lot of punch out of what was otherwise a pretty awesome scene.

The relationship between Usagi and Kintaro was genuinely pretty charming to me, and I felt like Kintaro’s development was handled surprisingly well. I would have liked to see more of that between Usagi and the turtles, but you can chalk that more up to limited time than poor writing. You at least got the impression that they grew to trust him as well. There were even charming scenes with Kintaro and the turtles, so that was something. The fact that Leo knew just how to handle Kintaro was heartwarming and made sense, considering he grew up being the eldest to three younger siblings. So for all the bitching I did about Leo being mishandled earlier, it’s not like they completely mucked him up or anything.

I thought the Tanuki coming back after an offering was a nice use of them as a deus ex machina of sorts. It didn’t feel forced or out of place to me. The fight scene on the mountain was also pretty great. Probably one of the better ones in the arc if you ask me. 

The scene where the turtles were outed by their scent made me laugh as well; it was the first thing I thought of when they put on disguises (’Uh you guys probably smell like shit you know that right?. There’s no way this is going to work’). I also like the callback to Raph and his trouble with horseback riding. My sister was complaining that they gave him Kintaro when she felt Usagi should have had him, and I responded that it was done for the sake of upping the stakes (but I agree with her. It was a pretty dumb idea).

What Jei did to Leo was super fucked up too. I can see why people made a huge deal out of it when it first aired. While I think it would have been obvious to me that it wasn’t really happening, I feel like I missed out on its impact by being spoiled over it online (but to be fair it’s the price I pay for exploring the fandom without finishing the series). It still managed to hit me hard and had a good punch even when I was spoiled by it, so it definitely did its job regardless. It also served as a nice hint that they were still under Jei’s control; that I didn’t catch right away.

I also want to give a shout out to the score of these episodes. The lack of music with some ambient sounds really benefited the special as a whole. Made it feel more like you were watching a Japanese Samurai flick, and it made the music that much more powerful when it was used.

Lastly, the entire last episode was incredible from start to finish. The fight scenes were solid, Kintaro was pretty great, and Usagi was a downright badass through and through. The ending scene with him wandering off to where his journey took him next really screamed ‘classic samurai film’, and the fact that he took the turtle effigies and wrapped them around his sword showed he grew to respect them as much as they respected him, and that he’ll likely always remember the encounter. I can also say never showing us the return home or pre-arrival from the turtle’s perspective was a very smart move. It would have subtracted from the arc in my opinion.

While I mostly have positive things to say about it, it definitely isn’t my favorite of this season. I feel Lone Rat and Cubs has been, with When Worlds Collide being a close second. To be fair, the reason is because they both felt like they could fit into the series proper to me (even the epilogue arc didn’t give me that feeling). I can argue that Usagi was probably the best put together and arguably the best overall, but I just can’t see it fitting into the series proper, so it’s a little lower on my personal list.

I still have one more arc to watch, and I’m both excited for it and dreading it, as it seems to be one of the series’ biggest base breakers. I’m not sure if I’ll like or hate it, but there’s only one way to find out!