Do you think if Ikuhara continued with Stars.................

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Slowpokeking

Aurorae Lunares
Apr 1, 2020
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#22
Sorry I was not clear: I was speaking about series he did after Sailormoon ^^
SuperS wasn’t his best but I believe he didn’t get the final word when it was about scenario or what would cover this season. I’m not sure he is the one to blame for SuperS direction (producers maybe ?).
Yes, but his style doesn't fit Sailor Moon 100%, it would still be the best that let Junichi Sato and Sukehiro Tomita to handle the main direction and plot which he plays the role of supporting director.
 

Slowpokeking

Aurorae Lunares
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#23
The lack of it. It still had a lot of cool concept and imagery, but the pacing was way over the place. To be honest pacing issues with the 90s show started during the S season. We had tons of episodes with Kaolinate, Eudial and Mimete, while the rest of the witches were essentially monster of the day. This was the manga way, but was very different from the perfectly evenly splited Classic and R seasons when ut comes to villains. R in particular did a great job with the Black Moon clan, sadly it was a bit spoiled by the Pluto shafting and underwhelming finale. Then Supers suddenly decided they didn't need plot progression till the last 10 episodes at best. Ikuhara is a great director whenever he does something of his own. Utena, Penguin Drum are great and show his craftsmanship. I am sure it is not his fault SuperS failed. It was more likely higher ups that wanted a light-hearted seasin with minimal overall plot that could capture younger audience. I still think some of the SuperS seasons themes went a bit too far and a bit transphobic in a way, making Fish Eye interested in a young boy. And the uncomfortable rape-like dream mirror sequences. Ikuhara's weirdness is alsome, but he went a bit too far there. From me personally Black Moon arc is my favorite 90s season. It was great in developing all the characters. Sure, they dropped the ball near the finale, but so were S, SuperS and stars. The first six episodes of Stars were, however the best episodes in my opinion. They showed what a difference a non monster of the day formula could do. Sadly with the actual Stars season, everything got a downgrade.
It's ok to have a light-hearted season, but it doesn't conflict with the plot.

Ikuhara was never so good at handling a main plot, his short stories and weird themes was what he was best at.

I don't think R's finale was that bad, the death were touching. Even the manga's fight VS Death Phantom was also underwhelming since the main focus was on Demande. It would be nice to let the redeemed villains to help in the battle though.
 
Jul 29, 2012
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#24
According to my knowledge, “S“ was the most popular season in Japan, “S“ was a very dark and mysterious season, and the ratings during “S“ were very high because everybody was tuning in...

then TOEI (I don’t know who decided?) decided to change the focus and have a light season and you don’t change what is working so well.

They should have done a season darker than S.

Even if they had no story to tell, just the awakening of Saturn would have kept people interested in continuing watching the show.

And we likely would have gotten more seasons.
 
Jul 6, 2012
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#25
Yes, but his style doesn't fit Sailor Moon 100%, it would still be the best that let Junichi Sato and Sukehiro Tomita to handle the main direction and plot which he plays the role of supporting director.
I like Ikuhara’s works but I’m not sure I want him involved in Stars, it would make a weird transition from Crystal/Eternal because he would want to leave his marks (which is normal as a director), and that would be a very different ambiance then other seasons. Sato may be a good choice because even if he is a bit less « artsy » as a director, he makes interesting choices.
 

Slowpokeking

Aurorae Lunares
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#26
According to my knowledge, “S“ was the most popular season in Japan, “S“ was a very dark and mysterious season, and the ratings during “S“ were very high because everybody was tuning in...

then TOEI (I don’t know who decided?) decided to change the focus and have a light season and you don’t change what is working so well.

They should have done a season darker than S.

Even if they had no story to tell, just the awakening of Saturn would have kept people interested in continuing watching the show.

And we likely would have gotten more seasons.
No, the first 2 are still the most popular seasons.

S is mostly highly rated among the fans, but both the popular votes and sales still went down compare to the first 2. It was also one of the reasons that it only got 39 instead of 40+ episodes.

Tone is not the main problem, the intensity and plot tempo is.
 

Slowpokeking

Aurorae Lunares
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#27
I like Ikuhara’s works but I’m not sure I want him involved in Stars, it would make a weird transition from Crystal/Eternal because he would want to leave his marks (which is normal as a director), and that would be a very different ambiance then other seasons. Sato may be a good choice because even if he is a bit less « artsy » as a director, he makes interesting choices.
I don't think Stars is that bad, it suffered from the bad impression of SuperS, the villains were fine and the Outers are back. They could have made the Inners more useful though.

It's just the ending that let me feel deeply unsatisfied.
 
Likes: kasumigenx
Jul 29, 2012
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#28
No, the first 2 are still the most popular seasons.

S is mostly highly rated among the fans, but both the popular votes and sales still went down compare to the first 2. It was also one of the reasons that it only got 39 instead of 40+ episodes.

Tone is not the main problem, the intensity and plot tempo is.
There was a document floating around some years ago; it showed the ratings for each Sailor Moon season and S was the one that got most viewers. Perhaps, someone can corroborate my claim.
 
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Slowpokeking

Aurorae Lunares
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#29
There was a document floating around some years ago; it showed the ratings for each Sailor Moon season and S was the one that got most viewers. Perhaps, someone can corroborate my claim.
Yes

Was Sailor Moon One of the Most Popular Anime of the 1990s?

S has the highest average viewer rating. But it was also because the high popularity that the first 2 seasons brought up. SuperS was the same with Classic but obviously their popularity was not on par. Overall, Classic and R's tone still attract the most groups of viewers.

Also Toy Sales>>>Rating to the production company.
 
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Slowpokeking

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#31
I think it would be good to adapt S' storytelling and continue the Inner/Outer conflict just not that intensive, and go back to focus on the villains a bit more.
 
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#32
I was talking specifically about viewer ratings, and when it comes to viewer ratings S topped all seasons.
Only Millenials remember Sailor Moon, while CCS was everywhere in the early 2000s as far as I remember, I remember avoiding CCS like a plague.
 
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#33
I think the best WAY to avoid the issues of Sailor Stars is to avoid Naoko's involvement in the Super S movie and she should focus on Sailor Stars, she can approve of the Super S movie but not contribute anything to it.

In that way, Sailor Stars will follow the basic plot of Dream and Stars arcs.

Of course also in that way she would not have any involvement with Ikuhara's departure.
 
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Yamoon

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Jul 17, 2006
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#35
The lack of it. It still had a lot of cool concept and imagery, but the pacing was way over the place. To be honest pacing issues with the 90s show started during the S season. We had tons of episodes with Kaolinate, Eudial and Mimete, while the rest of the witches were essentially monster of the day. This was the manga way, but was very different from the perfectly evenly splited Classic and R seasons when ut comes to villains. R in particular did a great job with the Black Moon clan, sadly it was a bit spoiled by the Pluto shafting and underwhelming finale. Then Supers suddenly decided they didn't need plot progression till the last 10 episodes at best. Ikuhara is a great director whenever he does something of his own. Utena, Penguin Drum are great and show his craftsmanship. I am sure it is not his fault SuperS failed. It was more likely higher ups that wanted a light-hearted seasin with minimal overall plot that could capture younger audience. I still think some of the SuperS seasons themes went a bit too far and a bit transphobic in a way, making Fish Eye interested in a young boy. And the uncomfortable rape-like dream mirror sequences. Ikuhara's weirdness is alsome, but he went a bit too far there. From me personally Black Moon arc is my favorite 90s season. It was great in developing all the characters. Sure, they dropped the ball near the finale, but so were S, SuperS and stars. The first six episodes of Stars were, however the best episodes in my opinion. They showed what a difference a non monster of the day formula could do. Sadly with the actual Stars season, everything got a downgrade.

I think I could have exactly write that. Perfect analyse! I think that they tried with SuperS to get rid of continuity to capture more "casual" viewer" Like it doesn't matter if you miss one episode or watched them in another orders for most of them because there is zero continuity for 90% of the season. I remember watching weekly the serie in 1996 it was extremely extremely boring. Honnestly I nearly quit the serie because of the boreness of each episodes. Now i find them funny for most of them but when i was 15 I was extrenely frustated after the amazing 3rd Season.
 

Slowpokeking

Aurorae Lunares
Apr 1, 2020
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#36
I think I could have exactly write that. Perfect analyse! I think that they tried with SuperS to get rid of continuity to capture more "casual" viewer" Like it doesn't matter if you miss one episode or watched them in another orders for most of them because there is zero continuity for 90% of the season. I remember watching weekly the serie in 1996 it was extremely extremely boring. Honnestly I nearly quit the serie because of the boreness of each episodes. Now i find them funny for most of them but when i was 15 I was extrenely frustated after the amazing 3rd Season.
SuperS might not be a big failure if it was in early 1990s, but it was 1996 and there were already many good anime with cohesive intense plot.

It wasn't the only problem though, the Inners were tossed away and no Outers, it was mostly about Chibiusa.
 
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#37
SuperS might not be a big failure if it was in early 1990s, but it was 1996 and there were already many good anime with cohesive intense plot.

It wasn't the only problem though, the Inners were tossed away and no Outers, it was mostly about Chibiusa.
The issue is that they put the majority of the actual Dream arc plot to Sailor Stars, but this plan was not executed well.
 

Slowpokeking

Aurorae Lunares
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#38
The issue is that they put the majority of the actual Dream arc plot to Sailor Stars, but this plan was not executed well.
Maybe it would be good to create a new arc first like R did. Then wait for Naoko to write enough materials to use.

Yeah, not sure why a lot of it was pushed into Stars.
 
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#39
Maybe it would be good to create a new arc first like R did. Then wait for Naoko to write enough materials to use.

Yeah, not sure why a lot of it was pushed into Stars.
Indeed, if they are wiser they should create an anime-only season and create a season that combines Dream and Stars Arc plots like what we got since the actual Dream Arc plot and Stars plot in the manga are intertwined.

Another issue is that Naoko got complacent after the Super S movie she helped to create until it was too late.
 
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Jun 17, 2019
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#40
I think if Ikuhara had stayed, Stars would at the very least have a more cohesive theme and still feel like Sailor Moon, rather than the phoned-in, hodgepodge mess of ideas it grabbed from the previous seasons but with little understanding on what actually made those ideas work. (See Usagi & Seiya's dynamic ripping off Classic's UsaMamo's, the Starlights antagonism mirroring the Outers but with a flimsy justification attached, etc) Say what you will about Ikuhara and his... eccentricism, but he at least always had a coherent vision and theme attached to each season he worked on. S was about the morality of sacrifices, SuperS about dreams and how that ties into growing up and what it means to be human, Stars is about.... pacifism? I guess? But that doesn't really come into play until the very last episode? Okay...

I think I could have exactly write that. Perfect analyse! I think that they tried with SuperS to get rid of continuity to capture more "casual" viewer" Like it doesn't matter if you miss one episode or watched them in another orders for most of them because there is zero continuity for 90% of the season..
I disagree, I feel Stars had far more of a continuity problem than SuperS did. SuperS at least still had the supporting civilian cast in it (and even brought back Reika, who was a callback all the way from Classic!) meanwhile Stars nixed all of them, and even in the much lauded Nehellenia arc had Chibi-Usa & Hotaru act like they were little more than aquaintences despite them being best friends & Chibi-Usa being so broken up about her disappearance at the end of S.