Finally, the finale of the Dark Kingdom arc has arrived!  And I have to say, it did not disappoint.  No, the disappointment came earlier.  We’re past it now.  Let’s look to the future.

First of all, the art is again gorgeous, though the animation is not without its faults.  Granted, it’s far fewer faults than previous episodes.   The action is so quick that you don’t really have enough time to notice all the imperfections.  One I noticed is that Sailor Moon’s hair animation is seriously lacking in frames, but the animators learned from the previous episode and made it less noticeable by using THREE frames instead of two.

For the most part, the episode follows the manga very closely.  In fact, it greatly improves upon it.  The biggest improvement?  THE FUCKING AWESOME MUSIC WHEN SAILOR MOON IS FIGHTING METALLIA.  It actually had my heart pumping.  Hell, this easily beats out the fight against Beryl in the 90s anime.  Moonlight Densetsu is a great song, but it’s not battle music.  Not at all.  Hell, it’s not uncommon to believe that the DiC dub’s Carry On was a more appropriate song to use in that fight.

Another improvement is Artemis’ vision of Luna in goddess form.  It wasn’t exactly clear what was going on in the manga; something about Luna’s prayer just made her seem more like Usagi, I guess.  Here, we see Luna in human form, which is something that doesn’t happen until the Stars arc.  Or the S movie.  Which… honestly sucks hard.

Not gonna lie; I thought that was Nehelenia at first.

Endymion’s planet-sensing ability is intact, but it could have used juuuuust a bit more fleshing out to explain exactly what’s going on.

The Moon Healing Escalation was just magical this time around, and the 90s anime has nothing on it.  This scene was done perfectly and was a massive improvement over the manga original.

The only major disappointment is Usagi’s “new” henshin.  Though, to be fair, the jump from Moon Prism Power to Moon Crystal Power was NOT a significant one.  It was pretty much the same henshin done at different angles.  And the original Moon Prism Power is the worst transformation.  Sailor Moon Crystal’s version of the henshin is pretty much based on those two, so I suppose it can be forgiven that the “new” henshin isn’t all that different.  But if we get around to Infinity, we better have a new sequence, because Moon Cosmic Power was the greatest henshin of all time.

And yes, Sailor Moon IS supposed to have a tiara again.  She uses Moon Tiara Boomerang a few times in the Black Moon Clan arc.

Finally, we end on a short intro to the next arc, just the way the manga did.

I’m sure those unfamiliar with the manga will be confused that the next episode is named “Infiltration ~  Sailor Mars.”  Then again, most of those unfamiliar with the manga have long stopped watching and circlejerk about their hate on the ANN forums.  Fuck ’em.

Anyway, thanks to January having 31 days, we’re left with another three-week wait for the next episode.