As far as I’m concerned, we’re still on a roll.  Though, character-wise, this is probably the weakest of the four Black Moon episodes.

Animation-wise, nothing to write home about.  Some weird choices here and there.  The worst bit of lazy animation in the entire episode was Sailor Moon’s hair spazzing out right at the beginning (again, it’s just two frames, and it’s VERY noticeable.

You might as well NOT FUCKING ANIMATE IT, because her hair being still would at least look better.

Early on, we see Chibi-Usa’s friend Momo, who I had to re-check the manga to confirm she actually IS in this chapter.  I thought for sure she only appeared in the extra chapters.  She also has a disturbingly large rack for her age and size.

Yay, more characters that won’t get any development or screen time… yay…  I’m sorry, that rack is just distracting.

The two biggest scenes from this chapter made it in, and that’s all I could ever hope for.  Those scenes are of course the consultation with the Shitennou and ANIMATED TUXEDO LA SMOKING BOMBER!

Plus bonus Artemis tackle!

I was disappointed in the fight between Venus and Calaveras, primarily because at least Mercury had a brief moment of badassery.  We finally get to see Rolling Heart Vibration, and… well, it’s pretty.  And useless.  It’s pretty useless.  Of course, Venus should be no stranger to that…

I’m just in utter shock at how pathetic an outing Venus had in this episode.

To be fair, in the manga, she never even got an attack off.  I guess her using Rolling Heart Vibration in this episode is to make up for the time she was SUPPOSED to use it in an earlier episode.  But also in the manga, the Spectre Sister ghosts originally took the form of Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter, which distracted Venus.

So now we see how this fight SHOULD have played out:  Venus uses Rolling Heart Vibration to do SOMETHING (knock out the people turned against her, cure them, destroy Droids… ANYTHING constructive), Venus sees visions of the three Senshi, they blame her for failing to protect them since she’s the leader, which distracts her, the visions turn into the Specter Sister ghosts, then Calaveras hits her.  Would that have been so hard?  Well, with any luck, Venus will get a better showing in the next episode.  And I guess not getting kidnapped is a win.

Next episode preview showed off some great visuals, so I’ve got high hopes for it.  Sailor Pluto hype aside, I wonder if we’re going to be keeping a certain scene intact.  Y’know what I’m talking about.  Or not.  Screw it, I’ll just come out and say it:  USAGI GETS LAID (maybe)!