The manual to the NES game Crystalis tells us, "It has been said that an ending is merely a beginning in disguise. And so it was that when the Great War engulfed the world, bringing civilization as we know it to an end, it ushered in the dawn of a new era. An era in which science and technology were shunned- for they had proven to be mankind's downfall- and the ancient arts of sorcery and magic were revived."

Clearly the writers of this book had anticipated the leagues of anti-SuperS magic wielders. They knew that these SuperS haters wanted to turn back the clock to the S season, and change history so that SuperS never happens. Well we won't let them, and neither will the character I have named "Jay" from Crystalis! He's got the windmill key and is well on his way to vanquishing the evildoers.

She's not Scrappy Doo. By the way, if you want to see the incredibly f@$#ked up first picture that came up on Google image search when I put in "chibiusa", click on the image. Its quite disturbing and is rated R- you have been warned. I provide this only as a public service, to inform people how messed up Google image search really is.

The reason many people dislike SuperS is, apart from everything else, it stars Chibi-Usa. And as strange as it sounds, the character has become "polarized"; you must either love her or hate her. But I declare myself to be pink neutral. Take that!

As always, I'm going to be redundant for a moment and tell you stuff you already know.

If you watch SuperS, and then you watch one of the other seasons, you'll notice something that's fairly obvious but that you might have only recognized unconsciously before.

While there are some 10 other senshi at different points of the series, the show "Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon" really is ONLY about a girl who is the heroine Sailor Moon.

Everything about the show is geared toward following her life, and we see things from her viewpoint. If it was Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Mercury it'd be a very different (and probably very boring) show. (Mercury goes to juku. Mercury goes to juku again. Mercury gets to juku early and decides to read a couple dozen books in the meantime.)

SuperS changes this focus to her daughter, Small Lady aka Chibi-Usa aka Sailor Chibi Moon aka Mini Moon... ugh... Mini Moon... I know I'm a couple years late but WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING.

ZANY ACTION IS COMING YOUR WAY!

But the show itself, even in the SuperS season is still called "Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon." (Or rather Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon but if you're getting that technical you need to go wack off somewhere and release some tension. Disregard this if you're a girl. Or don't disregard it and tape it for me please.)

Considering that Chibi-Usa is the future "Sailor Moon", in a way, the title doesn't lie.

Even though the story centers around Chibi-Usa, though, the storylines themselves in the SuperS season continue to be mature.

Only the SuperS season brings you horseboy-girl love. There's something in SuperS for the sexual deviant in all of us. Maybe not me, though, as I'm not as screwed up as you are. I'm going to have you arrested, sicko.

Some on the staff disagree with me on this, but I don't think that the characters get reduced to clichés in SuperS. What we see in the SuperS season is a new side to each character. Ami gets interested in mechanics, Makoto has a close friend who's a writer, Rei teaches a budding starlet about setting her goals high, and Minako... ok maybe Minako gets clichéd. But its done in a hilarious and amusing manner. Two-timing, its a classic!

The show Sailor Moon always had its  focus on a young teenage girl just starting to become an adult, learning about love, having to grow up, etc.

In SuperS, Chibi-Usa has to do the same thing, but she's younger. While this results in a lot of her interactions being innocent rather than romantic (there's a boy who likes her- how cute! And Fisheye likes him- how disturbing!) it also means that, unlike with Sailor Moon, when bad things happen to her, its really messed up. (Think about the ending to Nurse Angel Ririka SOS. If Ririka was some old hag, you wouldn't care, but she's friggin' 10.) Look at the situations this girl has been put in! She's:

• Had her mother frozen and father incapacitated
• Been sent back in time 1,000 years to a completely different world and alone without her parents or protection for the first time
• Living with an overt Electra complex problem
• Been brainwashed
• Turned into a 20 year old uber-bitch version of herself
• Made friends with a girl who wants to destroy the world
• Met a pedophile horse-kid who likes going into her dreams and gets mad when she "doesn't trust him."
• Thrown off a balcony/building/whatever the hell that is at the end of the SuperS season
• Thrown into a "black dream hole" which wants to feed on her "sugar energy"
• Been erased from existence

HAHAHA HAHAHAHA Hey at least its not that Sumo Chibi-Usa picture.

And her maturity age is what, 10? Even though she's supposedly 900- although I maintain that, while she is indeed explicitly 900 years old in the manga, she's probably not that old in the anime. They never said how long the people were trapped for until Crystal Tokyo was set up, only that its around in the 30th Century. For all we know they could have woken up in 2990.

For that matter, the Amazoness Quartet are kind of the Oppositio Senshi. Yes, like the ones in Another Story except not as ridiculously difficult to beat when the senshi is in the wrong position. (Backrow = elongated death, middle = instant death. BUY MORE YAGA SOUP! What I learned from Another Story is that by giving a girl earrings, you can make her much more powerful. I believe this will work in real life as well, so if I'm ever at a bank when its being robbed I'm going to give the female teller some earrings I found laying in a treasure chest nearby and send her out to defeat the bad guys. No sense in me being hurt. Girls should do all the fighting! But that is a lesson is for another day.)

The Amazoness Quartet girls are about the age of the other senshi, admittedly a little younger. They're purposely trying not to grow up, and are failing at it.

The internet brings you strange fanart, like this.

Usagi is trying desperately to grow up as fast as she can, but learns that she can only do it slowly. She's got to move one step at a time. Its something she figured out by the end of the R season.

Since Usagi already has learned that by the S season, though, the audience needs someone who has to face those internal struggles, whom they can identify with, and who can make the show more interesting, and that's where Chibi-Usa comes in in the S season. She's there to take over for Usagi and to be the character who's growing up and learning lessons. Unlike Usagi, though, she's much younger and doesn't quite know how to go about things. (And she's in love with her father. That tends to make things a bit more complicated.) But she is like Usagi in that she wants to be an adult faster- as you well recall there was that episode where they switched ages.

WHY WOULD SOMEONE DO THIS?!

The lesson of the SuperS season becomes that growing up is inevitable, and it has to be done at its own pace. You can't rush it, and you can't delay it, even in a world of dreams. The Amazoness Quartet ended up learning this, and by the end of the Stars arc, Nehellenia learns this as well.

This brings us back to the charge that has been made that SuperS is a childish season.

Its main character is a child, the villain is a child, the stories are rather immature at times, the bad guys are a circus, etc.

At the same time, it has much more mature themes of rape (what some people interpret looking into the dream mirrors by the Amazon Trio to be), and learning that you can't live your life in a dream; you have to be willing and ready to grow up and take responsibility for yourself and your actions.

The R season showed the danger of wanting to grow up too quickly; you become a bitch and try to destroy the world. Although, you're a hot bitch. Maybe its not so bad after all.

Is that a child-centered lesson- growing up, and learning to leave your childhood's dreams behind? Yes, in a way. I mean, you can only "grow up" if you're younger. But there are a lot of adults who need to learn that lesson. And it doesn't mean that you need to stop dreaming- but you can't ask for the impossible like eternal youth, as Nehellenia did.

So now you have some ammunition to use against the SuperS haters. All you have to do next is find the Crystalis sword which, according to this packet of game spoilers called an instruction booklet, is a sword "given by Mesia with the combined abilities of four words. It can destroy DYNA, the main-computer in the tower. It is a "key" which makes explosive equipment work in the tower." Gee thanks guys! You mean its the computer in that place that I started the game in that's evil and I just need to come back to the beginning and use my sword and everything will blow up? I'm sure glad you told me this in the item description section rather than letting me find out by playing the game!

Use your new knowledge of the SuperS season wisely and remember, the fate of the world rests in your hand. Save early, save often!

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