Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon SuperS Specials

I was surprised to see there's anything Sailor Moon left on MAL that nobody has reviewed, so I thought I'd do a quick write-up. The long and short of it is that this is worth watching, especially if you happened to want to see more of Uranus and Neptune, but it's also skip-able and has no important plot points.

Originally airing after episode 4 of SuperS, this 1 hour TV special is broken into three 16 minute mini episodes. The first is a simple recap episode of the three seasons prior and you can essentially skip it, it has no new material besides Usagi and Luna's ... narration.

The second however takes place early in the story of SuperS, shortly after the solar eclipse. It tells what Sailor Uranus and Neptune were up to during this arc (and tries to handwave away their absence from the rest of the season with a brief explanation). The plot itself is a typical Sailor Moon style monster-of-the-week story, but hey, we get to see Haruka and Michiru being their glorious gay selves for a whole 16 minutes and what more can you ask for, we get Haruka being a playboy and Michiru getting jealous, a bit of fluff, and some fight scenes. Perfect.

The third on the other hand is protagonized by Chibi Usa who has a vampire monster pretend to be a student at her school. It's purely forgettable filler, the highlight of the whole thing is Ami arguing against the science of using garlic to fight vampires, but nothing about it is particularly bad either (besides, like the rest of SuperS, having its screentime overwhelmingly dominated by Chibi Usa).

Really, I'd recommend everyone just watches the second of the three minisodes and calls it a day, unless you happen to *really* love Chibi Usa and desperately want to see more of her. If only because of the Haruka/Michiru focus I give this an overall 7/10.

I think the SuperS specials are a great addition to the series itself. For Haruka and Michiru fans especially, you get some of their best scenes together in their special especially with them not being in the SuperS season itself. The episodes are fun and fast paced. They also show off the peak of the dreamy disco artistry that Sailor Moon achieved in later seasons. I definitely recommend giving them a watch. There is nothing too deep that happens, just basic enemy appears/fight plot. They are not to be taken too seriously, just fun filler to grow closer to the characters and get deeper insight.

The Sailor Moon SuperS Specials are 3 episodes that are overall really well done, each focusing on something unique. I think they work really well as side stories, and not the least of these reasons being because they re-introduce Haruka and Michiru (who were excluded from the main season of SuperS for some reason). The stories are really entertaining and give some good time in the spotlight to all the Sailor Senshi and Chibiusa at once. Even though this normally wouldn't be special, their attention as individual characters has diminished slightly over time, so it's good to see that they're still usable as great characters. ... Honestly, the episode with the vampire speaks to me the most, because it perfectly blends a sense of the early season-one style: that is, hyped-up suspense that works well, provides a bit of tension, but leaves things "open" in the end by not really giving a full conclusion, and is also really funny on top of that.

Even though there may not be much to say about all three episodes collectively without spoiling them (as they only total to around approximately 18 minutes each), I think they work incredibly well as a tool to revitalize some interest in Sailor Moon. They're just extras, but they fit right in with the main season in case you find it a bit boring.