Ultra Fan Guide to Ayase Haruka
One of the first animes I ever watched was Sailor Moon. And I loved it! I watched every episode more than once. I knew all characters to the extent of their emotion stone — yes, they had emotion stones! My pocket money was used to buy the magazine with background stories and parts of the manga as well as episode guide of the week and fan posts. I drew a lot of pictures and later fan fiction... one could say I was a huge fan back then.
One week ago, I came across the live-action drama Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, and I flashed back to my childhood. To be honest, it is a low budget production, with a soundtrack which sounds like they recorded it in a karaoke bar.
Why is it fun to watch?
CAUTION: Minor Spoilers for Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon ahead
Obviously, because the watcher meets the characters of the anime again. And even if the performance is... It is helpful that I do not speak Japanese and do not know how bad the intonation is when they talk.
Nevertheless, the characters are portrayed quite well. My favourite characters changed while I grew older. At first, it was Sailor Moon, later Sailor Jupiter and finally Sailor Mars.
Transformation
They do the transformation stuff almost precisely as they did in the anime. And they do it every episode. Did you ever realize how much time we spent as kids just watching the same transformation scenes over and over again? I even hummed the music with them. It is so hilarious to see it with real actors. It made me realize how unnatural was every movement. However, I am still excited every episode and would never skip that scene!
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Choreography
The directors or editors of this drama overdid it with... wanna be action scenes. The actresses perform a lot of choreographies with doing flick flacks and cartwheels. In one episode they do this for 45 sec, without touching the enemies and finally, Sailor Moon attacks with magical power. It is so weird that is funny at the same time.
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Costumes
Obviously, they had not many technical achievements available, that is why they had to be creative and develop a huge variety of costumes. The designer used a lot of plastic and later on, parts of one costume are found in another demon costume as well ^^
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Luna
It is funny enough that Usagi is bossed around by a cat (as well as almost every cat owner), but it is even more hilarious if this cat is a plush toy! I didn't like Luna back then because she was a bit like my mom — do this and do that. But the drama cat is a bit more relaxed... most of the time.
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Em... Romance?
I just came to realize that the love story between Usagi and Mamoru had influenced my imagination of romance until today. Their love started already one life ago and still lasts in the next life. They are destined to be together.
Does the chemistry in the drama mirror that? Nope, not at all. :P
The atmosphere between actor Shibue Joji and actress Sawai Miyuu is so awkward that I really do not want them to kiss. But I must acknowledge that they both were very young at the time they filmed this drama. But it feels like a car crash — you cannot force yourself to not look at it.
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Story
I only watched the first 16 episodes so far, but it seems to be more or less the story of the first season. If you remember and be honest, usually there are many filler episodes in which a random character occurs, turns into a monster and gets saved, until the watcher reaches the key episodes. So the story is nothing special and pretty draggy if you don't get a flashback and feel like you are an 8 year old girl again.
The ending of the first anime season gave me goosebumps even as an adult. I am looking forward to this moment in the live-action drama... even if it will be laughable. :)
So why did I write all this stuff? There is no moral, no recommendation or do not watch hint. Nothing new or special... I wrote it just because I want to share my amusement. :D
