Should you watch this, Wiki this, or wait for the recap? You can Wiki this.
When Princess D comes to town to exhibit the famous treasure of the Kingdom of D, the Dark Kingdom hatches a sinister plan to steal the treasure in the hopes of it being the Silver Crystal in disguise. Will the Sailors be able to stop them? And what is Tuxedo Mask’s role in all of this?
“Masquerade Dance Party” is the fourth episode of the first season of Sailor Moon Crystal. It’s Japanese anime and I watched it with English subtitles (I don’t speak Japanese, though I would like to at some point). This is the first episode where no new character is introduced.
I’m honestly not sure why this is a critical episode to feature in the rebooted anime, apart from the fact that it was one of the chapters in the original manga. It doesn’t really add to the story, and I would much rather have all the Sailors assembled first so that we can see more group battles. But then, it does have the Shitennou introducing themselves to the Sailors, so there you go.
Highlights
Sailor Moon’s costume updates
Sailor Moon gets a new tiara because her old one was destroyed in the battle against Jadeite, in the previous episode. Now that’s some heavy continuity! You’d have thought that her tiara would magically reconstitute itself, but that’s apparently not the case. Looks like Sailor Moon has been given a more realistic update! Not only that, we get a new tiara design. If there are costume changers like this every few episodes, I’m sold on the attention to continuity detail.
Does the opening change? Have to check the next episode to see what’s the tiara design.
Shitennou introduces themselves
It’s nice to have the heroes know who the villains are, so that there’s a higher chance of them interacting and hence, more interesting battles. It’s great that Kunzite makes his appearance so early in the series, since he’s a pretty interesting and powerful character and his presence increases the threat level, and hence tension, of the fights the Sailors have to face.
Development of Sailor Moon & Tuxedo Mask’s relationship
Seeing their romance develop is great, since it’s one of the core components of the series. It’s a bit annoying to hear Sailor Moon’s inner dialogue since it sounds like the ramblings of a little girl… but then, Sailor Moon is a little girl.
Letdowns
No Shitennou-Sailor battle
I really expected that! Dramatically, it makes sense for them to appear, just so that the protagonists and antagonists have their first encounter. But why don’t the Shitennou wipe out the Sailors now, especially when they have Kunzite on their side? There’s only three Sailors now – the generals outnumber them! Argh!
Also, nobody thought of opening up the treasure? At all? What if it was the Silver Crystal? Would they really just let Princess D keep it?
Sailors vs Nephrite battle was short
It was a rather strange way of defeating Nephrite, and also it seemed like Nephrite had summoned a monster to possess Princess D, rather him doing the actual possession. Why didn’t he just open the treasure while he was running away! The plot holes!
Feels like filler
As mentioned previously, nothing really gets advanced in this episode, so it feels like filler. Still, it pays heed to the events of the previous episode, and we get a preview of Makoto at the end of the ep, so it’s not entirely filler material.
“Masquerade Dance Party” doesn’t add much to the overall series arc, but it has some nice moments that will probably be flashbacked to in later episodes. More action and fights would have made this a more appealing episode, really.
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