Sailor Moon

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It's a combination of not caring and overworking an extremely underpayed staff of animators to reach ridiculous deadlines (though, unfortunately that's true of most animation studios, but Toei is one of the worst offenders). This is the same thing that they did for Sailor Moon and DBZ back in the 90's, except now they give even less of a shit than before.

These are idiotic corporate businessmen that run Toei, and they seem to believe that nostalgia alone will sell these products for them, regardless of any lack of quality. Clearly they never learned their lesson from GT.

But you know what pisses me off more? The morons who defend these practices and actually support this company. I'm talking about hopeless fanboys who can't admit that new iterations of their favorite series are basically being treated like an utter joke.

Now, the last two DBZ movies were pretty good, most likely due to more room for creative freedom, a much higher budget, and Akira Toriyama's direct involvement in story and writing. Super, however, is really just Toei's version of that without any heart or soul behind it.

[LumRanmaYasha]

At least DBZ and Sailor Moon both had noticeable effort put into their productions. While the animation quality has always been a mixed bag, when it was good it was exceptional, and those shows still hold up pretty well visually and there are many great scenes that still stand out and hold up really well even by today's standards. There's a reason you still have people going back to and getting into those series two decades later; on the most basic level, and even in spite of their pacing issues and filler (really the main reason why both shows don't hold up well, imo), there was still a good level of quality in the production, and it was clear that they genuinely tried making the best shows the possibly could under their limitations back then.

Both SMC and DBS look like shit. They sound like shit. They move like shit. The writing and pacing are shit. The fact that they are inferior in essentially every regard to shows over two decades old, despite the huge advantage of not having to pad out episodes with filler as a necessity to not keep up with source material, is absolutely unforgivable. I've still kept up with DBS because it's Dragon Ball, and I care about Dragon Ball too much to just give up on it. But it's precisely because Dragon Ball means so much to me that I'm so pissed off that it's not being given better treatment, that Toei doesn't care enough to enough to put in any effort, to even try, to make it as good a show as it could be, when by every right they should have the means and the capability, or at least an incentive, to do so.   

[Spark Of Spirit]

I would have preferred a Sailor Moon Kai, honestly. Yes, even knowing what that entails. Crystal is so very dull in comparison to the first anime where you can tell they tried despite budget and filler problems.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I didn't mean to say that DBZ was as bad as this. I've said before that without the padding, it has some real stand-out moments (Gohan going SSJ2 for the first time with that amazing music in the Japanese version gets me every time).

I'm just saying that as cheap as Toei was back then, they are even worse now.

What gets me about Super aside from just the animation is the inexcusable padding and the fucking soundtrack....or lack thereof. I mean, seriously, even the Faulconer track was more interesting than this garbage (and I hate that score). Think about how iconic and well-composed Kikuchi's classic music for DB/Z was. And even though plagiarized, I'd be lying if I said that Kai's soundtrack during the first 50-something episodes didn't sound good. Super sounds like glorified elevator music, but somehow even more forgettable. This is honest-to-god one of the most dull and lifeless scores that I've ever heard....and it's fucking Dragon Ball!

[VLordGTZ]

I love the Infinity/Death Busters arc, but I'm not expecting anything good from Toei.  Crystal was just awful.  I'll admit that the Dark Kingdom arc isn't all that interesting in the manga, but Toei managed to make it even worse with terrible animation and pacing.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Yeah, that's the thing. Dark Kingdom was already pretty dull in the manga. But Crystal made it a slog at best, and unwatchable at worst. But it didn't have to. It could have told that story in a better, more interesting way. I mean, they fucking did it before in first anime. Yes, the filler and annoying whiny Usagi stuff sucked in the first season of the anime, but the canon material was certainly made more interesting, if not just simply improved over the manga's version on the whole. I honestly do really appreciate a lot of the old SM anime's narrative changes, mostly in regards to fleshing out the supporting villains and protagonists. It's the filler and annoying characterizations, especially with Usagi, Chibiusa, and Rei, that really bring it down for me on the whole and why I prefer the manga overall. But you know, at least they tried back then. They did some things differently, some of it worked, some of it didn't, but they clearly wanted to make an entertaining show that wasn't just a lazy copy of the manga but it's own thing, with the ambition to be even better than the manga.

There is no effort put into Crystal. They copied the story as it is from the manga with no attempt to tweak things to make it work better (there were minor changes, sure, but they didn't really add anything), and then they bring everything, both the good and bad, crashing down with an awful production that made through the show tedious rather than entertaining. It just didn't have to be that way. They have the advantage of foresight - they could have made changes to the manga that would improve upon what's already there. They could have made the show a visual treat for fans, and really do their best to sell the story for old and new audiences alike. Same with DBS. There is just no good excuse for why these shows turned out as badly as they have.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Sailor Moon Crystal dub will premiere on Hulu in November.

[LumRanmaYasha]

The first two dubbed episodes of Crystal will debut on Neon Alley/Hulu on November 20th. Subsequent dubbed episodes will then premiere every friday night starting with episode 3 the following week.

[VLordGTZ]

A new preview has been released for Sailor Moon Crystal Season III as well as the new opening and ending themes.

It looks like Toei is putting a more effort into this season, so I'm actually somewhat optimistic about this adaption now.  It also helps that the Infinity/Death Busters arc is legitimately well written and superior to the Dark Kingdom and Black Moon arcs in every way possible. 

[Daikun]

So I hear that season 3 of Crystal fixes all the problems of the previous seasons.

Can I get confirmation on this? I'm scared to check.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Yes. It's been very competent so far. They ditched the CGI transformation sequences, the animation doesn't go horribly off model, they added back in the humor, and the characters actually emote now. Obviously, this is Toei we're talking about, so they could still screw it up down the line, but right now it seems that they've listened to fans' complaints and have made an effort to address them.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yet we're still getting literally all of those problems with Dragon Ball Super.

Has Toei ever considered that maybe if those features aren't OK in one show, that they aren't acceptable in ANY show. Do they really need to test fans with bad animation and production values, as well as bad pacing, and wait to see how long it will take them to complain about it enough to force them to change their ways? It's like they are intentionally trying to piss off fans in order to determine what they can get away with.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Personally, I've really enjoyed the last few episodes of Super.  The animation quality is still not the best, but all the tournament fights have felt unique and well-paced (except maybe Vegeta vs. Megata, which did feel padded a bit), and there's been some really great character moments, and even genuine character development for Vegeta. And the most recent episode was really well made from both a story and execution standpoint. I've felt all the fights in the tournament so far have felt like classic Dragon Ball in different ways, but the fight between Goku and Hit has been especially cool, and I was genuinely excited and fully immersed while watching it, even physically reacting with fanboyish glee to the AWESOME twist and beam-struggle at the end. So, idk, I'm pretty optimistic that Super's finally gotten on track and am really looking forward to where it'll go after this arc. Especially if Future Trunks really is coming back like Toriyama hinted at in his interview with Toyotaro for the first DBS manga volume.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I wasn't really commenting on the quality of the story itself (which personally I have problems with, but also enjoy some stuff about it). My issues are with the bad animation and awkward pacing.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Fair enough, but while they still aren't ideal, I do feel the pacing and animation quality have been much better recently than they were before. There were some really good looking moments in the most recent episode in particular, imo.