Live Action Sailor Moon update (Second episode synopsis)

Once again an hugely AMAZING thank you to "Claudia" for providing us with an incredible synopsis of the second episode of the new live action Sailor Moon series. She actually sent this much earlier and I just wasn't able to check my inbox, so sorry for its lateness.

The second episode starts out with narration by Usagi, over scenes from last episode. ‘I’m Usagi Tsukino, and I met this mysterious stuffed cat named Luna, and transformed into the sailor suited pretty guardian Sailormoon! I beat an enemy called a Youma, and saved Naru-chan, but I have to find the other senshi, and it feels like everything only just begun. It’s pretty exciting!
(Opening Sequence)

The Dark Kingdom. Queen Beryl asks Jadeite if it’s true that one of the Sailor senshi has awakened. He confirms this and tells her the senshi was called Sailormoon. Beryl is not pleased. ‘To think that those brats would appear before me again…’ Beryl thinks she knows what they are after, and tells Jadeite to keep on collecting energy from humans. She holds out her hand, and a dark brown crystal is transported in a streak of light to Jadeite's hand. ‘Keep collecting energy, and finally the day of the destruction of this earth will come. It will be the final destruction! She smiles evilly, after a scene of the earth enveloped in black light.

Meanwhile, in the Crown Karaoke Center, Motoki is watching a turtle which is in a glass container on the counter. He grins like an idiot at it, and then looks up to see Usagi holding a card out to him. It is a little laminated card with a picture of Luna’s face on it and the word ‘Passport’, which she presses against the glass after he says ‘Welcome.’ It’s a yearly passport to get into the karaoke box. (I guess for free or something?) He looks at it for a moment and says, ‘Well go on up then.’ She walks happily off. He stares after her, looking confused. ‘Did we have yearly passports?’

Usagi opens the door to a room in the karaoke center which dissolves into the door as she closes it behind her. ‘Wow!’ She skips down a staircase into a huge white walled room. The room has candy dispensers, and many rainbow colored glass bottles, bouquets of flowers, a table with blue chairs and a flat screen computer, and even a yellow lava lamp. And of course there is a flat screen karaoke machine, which Usagi immediately goes over to. She picks up the book of songs (which has a picture of Luna, says ‘LunaKara’), and takes it with her to the chair. ‘Luna, did you make this place?’ She asks, in awe. ‘I just borrowed the space’ Luna tells her. ‘Only the senshi can enter, and it’s set up so no one else can know about it.’ Usagi flips through the song book, and is overjoyed to find that it has a special page with all the songs from Minako Aino’s new album, ‘Venus’. 

‘We can have secret talks in this room.’ Luna tells her, and proceeds to explain that their mission is to seal away the terrible bundle of evil that is trying to awaken. ‘To do that, we need to find our Princess, and the Maboroshi no Ginzuisho, and the other senshi…Usagi-chan, what are you doing?’ Usagi has pulled out her magic cell phone and transformed herself into a rocker type girl with a long black ponytail, a jean jacket, the shortest vinyl shorts in the world, platform boots and fishnets with seams in the backs. ‘I passed this really cool girl on the street earlier.’ She explains happily. ‘This is great! You can transform into anything!’ She skips over to the karaoke machine, as Luna moans ‘Usagi-chan, this isn’t a game!’ Usagi turns to her. ‘I know. But I’m not very good with difficult ideas.’ With that she turns back and prepares to sing. ‘At any rate,’ Luna says, ‘The enemy is collecting energy from humans and turning it into evil energy. It’s your mission to protect the people of this town….’ Suddenly Usagi stops. ‘Ahhh!’ She runs back to the table and dumps out her school bag onto it. ‘I forgot! I have a test tomorrow!!’ Luna gives up. ‘We have to find the other senshi soon…’ She moans.

At school the next day, Usagi and Naru are in a crowd of students looking at the test results rankings. Naru is number 15. Usagi says that’s wonderful and wonders why she is so stupid. ‘But look at number one,’ Naru says. ‘The genius of our class.’ ‘Oh, yeah, Mizuno-san…’ Usagi agrees, ‘She’s amazing.’ Ami is looking at the scores, a bit apart from the other students. Usagi comments that she doesn’t look happy about it at all. Two of Usagi’s friends come up, and tell them that Ami is always the top, and that she goes to the famous Alt Cram School, and that all she ever does is student. ‘I don’t think she has any interest in anything else.’ Says one friend. ‘She doesn’t have any friends.’

‘But what about those girls?’ Usagi asks. Sure enough some girls come up to Ami, and ask her to study with them. But Usagi’s friend explains that those girls just want to get into good with Ami because her mother is a famous doctor. Ami excuses herself and walks away. Usagi’s friend continue to make comments about Ami and studying, but Usagi tells them to be quiet, because Ami might hear them. ‘Although…if she’s that smart, she’s like someone in a different world…’ Usagi stares after Ami.

Lunch time at school, Usagi is having a great time, laughing and stealing her friend’s food. Meanwhile, Ami, who is sitting alone, an almost tearful expression on her face, takes her lunch and leaves the classroom. Usagi watches her go, looking concerned.

Ami eats her lunch (store bought sandwiches, I guess to show that her mother doesn’t have time to make her lunch) alone outside, in the grey, cloudy weather, while she reads a book on some kind of complicated mathematics. Luna is lurking around the corner, her crescent moon flashing blue. ‘I knew that it was reacting to something other than just Usagi…’ She murmers. ‘Could it be…?’

On the brick bridge, Ami comes across the Luna doll, lying in the road. She looks at it, puzzled, and looks around to see if there’s anyone around. Meanwhile, Usagi says goodbye to Naru, and makes her way over the bridge, to see Ami bend over Luna on the road. ‘Luna?’ Usagi murmers. ‘Why is she…?’

‘What happened?’ Ami asks the Luna doll. She picks it up, and brushes it off, dusting of the ledge before setting it down. ‘If you stay here, I’m sure someone will come and get you.’ She reassures Luna, with a smile. Usagi comes running along. ‘Mizuno-san! That’s mine.’ Ami immediately turns cold and distance. ‘Oh.. It was on the ground.’ She turns and walks off. Usagi grabs Luna, and runs after Ami with a smile. ‘Mizuno-san! You use polite language to talk to stuffed animals?’ She asks with a grin. Ami seems embaressed. ‘Er…that was…because I’d never met her before.’ Usagi looks at her oddly. ‘Never met…’her’?’ She skips in front of Ami with a huge grin. ‘Mizuno-san, you sure are interesting!’

Then comes a montage of Usagi skipping around Ami, and talking her ear of with a huge grin, while Ami mostly ignores her, and looks away. Finally Ami says that she has to go to Cram School, and Usagi waves good-bye with a smile. Ami pauses in front of a big poster of Minako Aino, at a shop where ‘C’est la Vie’ is playing. Usagi follows her. ‘Do you like Aino Minako?’ She asks happily. ‘Who knew! But I love her too! She’s so cool!’ Ami tries to brush off Usagi’s enthusiasm, saying, ‘I just listen to her because her voice works well when I’m trying to memorize things’. ‘Memorize things?’ Usagi comments that Ami and she do things completely differently, seeming a bit bewildered and then brightens again. ‘Have you bought her new album?’ Ami shakes her head. Usagi lends her the MD copy she’s made of the new album, while Ami looks at her like she is crazy for being so nice, especially when she calls Ami ‘Ami-chan.’. ‘You can call me Usagi, ok?! Usagi tells her. Ami half runs of, and Usagi calls after her that they should eat their lunch together sometime. ‘She’s not at all like everyone says.’ Usagi tells Luna. ‘She’s really interesting. I think she’s just a normal girl.’ Luna jumps down from her arms. ‘She’s not a normal girl. She’s a senshi.’ Luna turns to Usagi, her moon glowing blue. ‘We’ve found the second one!’

Ami, in regular clothes, enters Alt Seminar, and the teacher comes up to her and tells her that her results were the highest of everyone. ‘At this rate, you can get into any high school, even any college you want!’ Ami explains that she wants to go to medical school. The teacher asks her why she wants to be a doctor so much. ‘My mother wants me to.’ Ami explains. ‘And I want to make her happy. Besides, studying is the only thing I’m good at.’ She pulls out the MD Usagi lend her, and remembers her inviting Ami to eat lunch with her. Ami smiles, clutching the MD to her chest.

That night, at the Tsukino house, Usagi is clutching her pillow to her chest, and rhapsodizing about how lucky it is that Ami is the next senshi. ‘She’s interesting, and smart, and she’s a fan of Minako Aino, and she’s cute!’ Luna agrees that intelligence certainly is lacking in the current senshi. Usagi throws her pillow at her, and jumps happily into bed. ‘I can’t wait to tell Ami-chan!’ Luna struggles out under the pillow. ‘Usagi-chan… you have no sense of the seriousness of it all…’

A short scene of Ami listening to Usagi’s MD.

At night, Jadeite appears in the Alt Cram school, and places the brown crystal on a clay statue of a soldier and dog, turning them into Youma. The soldier Youma attacks the cram school teacher.

At school the next day Usagi runs over to Ami, grabbing both her arms. ‘I wanted to see you so much, I ran! Com’ere!’

Ami and Usagi stand together on a staircase of the school. Ami looks at her with wide eyes? ‘What? Me?’

‘Right! You and me are chosen senshi!’ Usagi claps her hands on Ami’s shoulders with huge smile. ‘So let’s fight together!’ She explains that Luna will bring Ami a tranformation item, and then ‘Bam! You transform!’ Usagi is interrupted in her explainatory gestures when she realizes that Ami isn’t saying anything. ‘Do you not want to?’ She asks, looking worried.

‘I get it.’ Ami says. ‘You became friends with me because I was a senshi.’ She almost drops a white box she is carrying. ‘I don’t want to be a senshi. I’m busy with studying, and I have Cram School and stuff.’ She runs off.

At lunch, Usagi gazes sadly at Ami’s empty seat. Ami is outside eating alone again. She opens the white box, which contains two fancy custards that she had obviously bought to eat with Usagi, and sighs, ‘I’m used to it…’

After school, Usagi plomps down at her desk with a defeated sigh. ‘This sucks. Just when I thought I would get to fight together with Ami-chan…’

Luna says that she’ll convince Ami, but Usagi disagrees vehemently. ‘No! She said she doesn’t want to! It’s mean to try to force her.’

‘It’s a senshi’s destiny to fight. And we don’t have anyone else but her. She needs to fight with us.’ Luna tells her.

Usagi says it’s mean to try to force Ami if she doesn’t want to, and that she is ‘totally totally against it!’, and attempts to stalk out of the room, but when she opens her door, Ikuko-mama is standing there with a ‘A map to Cram School!’ Ikuko-mama tells Usagi she’s worried about her scores and that she’ll be going to Cram school from now on.

Meanwhile, Ami is in class at cram school. She takes out Usagi’s MD and gazes at it. The teacher is lecturing about math. Ami puts the MD in her MD player and begins to listen to it. The teacher tells the students to listen carefully, and as she talks, there is a scraping kind of noise beneath her words. The true form of the Youma flashes for a moment. Ami looks around as the students who are listening begin to grow tired.

Outside, Usagi pauses on a bridge, and looks at her map again. Luna tells her it’s the same cram school as Ami, and this is a chance to talk her into being a senshi. But Usagi says that she won’t. As she walks along looking at the map, she bumps into none other than Mamoru. There is a flash back of their first meeting from last episode.

Mamoru says, ‘Watch where you’re walking, Model wanna-be!’

‘Why don’t you watch where you’re going!’ Usagi starts to walk off in a huff. Mamoru picks up her map, which she has dropped. ‘You’re going the wrong way.’ Mamoru tells her. In one direction is the Alt seminar. In the other, is ‘The Good Kid’s Friendly Cram School’. ‘You should be going to that one.’ Mamoru says. ‘It’s perfect for you.’ He walks off. Usagi shakes her map angrily. ‘Ooh, he called me an idiot! I’m so pissed!’ Luna shakes her head, ‘I guess you could never be at the same level as Ami-chan…’

But all of a sudden Luna’s moon glows red. ‘Usagi-chan!’ Usagi stares at the Alt Seminar building.

Sure enough, inside the seminar, all the students but Ami have fallen asleep. Ami looks around. ‘What is this!?’ The teacher comes over and rips the MD player out of her ears. ‘You shouldn’t listen to this during class.’ The teacher throws the MD player on the ground, and Usagi’s MD falls out. ‘I’ll just have to take your energy first…’ Ami watches in horror as the Youma changes to it’s true form. She screams and runs away. The youma chases her. She ducks and it falls into the wall. The unconscious form of the teacher falls out of it, but it gets up and starts chases her again. ‘How mean! You used the teacher to do this!’ Ami exclaims. Usagi runs in just in time to see Ami falls down. ‘Ami-chan!’ Usagi transforms.

The youma has cornered Ami against the class railing. ‘Hold it!’ Sailormoon yells. She does ‘Moon tiara boomarang!’, but it doesn’t really have much effect, and the youma pushes Ami over the railing along with it. Ami screams as she falls towards the floor.

Usagi jumps over the railing, and catching Ami, holding on the ledge with one hand. The youma falls to the ground and shatters. ‘Ami-chan, are you ok?’ Sailormoon asks, as they dangle off the ledge. ‘Are you…Tsukino-san?’ Ami asks. Usagi nods.

On the floor, the dog youma comes and revives the other youma.

The girls slip another inch. ‘That’s it…’ Ami says. ‘Tsukini-san…make me a senshi. Then…’

‘No…’ Usagi says. ‘You shouldn’t transform if you don’t want to! It’s ok. I’ll work something out.’ She tries without success to pull herself up over the railing. The two youma are getting closer.

‘I do want to!’ Ami says, as Usagi struggles. ‘I want to fight with you, Tsukino-san!’

‘Ami-chan!’ Usagi looks at her, surprised.

‘Ami-chan! Catch this!’ Luna’s crescent moon glows yellow, and a transformation bracelet appears on Ami’s arms in a flash of blue light. Ami slips, and starts to fall.

But as she falls she yells ‘Mercury Power, Make up!’, and transforms in mid-air. She lands gracefully in the fountain. ‘I’m the soldier of water and knowledge, Sailormercury! In the name of Mercury, I’ll punish you!’

Sailormoon rushes over to Mercury and they clasp hands. The youma surround them. ‘Ami-chan! We’ll fight them together!’ Ami nods. The two senshi fight, which mostly consists of them runs with their arms out like airplanes, and spinning around, and jumping like ballet dancers. Then Sailormoon makes her Moon Stick appear, and does a new attack ‘Moon Twilight Flash!’ and dusts the first youma. Mercury dusts the second with ‘Mercury Aqua Beam!’.

‘We did it!’ Sailormoon grins. Mercury grins back.

‘But…are you really ok with this?’ Sailormoon asks.

Mercury nods, with a smile. ‘I didn’t do it because I’m a senshi or anything…I can’t really explain, but...I wanted to fight with you.’

Usagi nods. ‘That’s the same with me! I wanted to become friends with you, not because you were a senshi, but because you were Ami-chan!’

Mercury smiles happily. ‘thank you!’ Sailormoon grins back at her.

Meanwhile Tuxudeo Kamen has watched the whole thing from the floor above. ‘Sailormoon…and Sailormercury, huh….’ He muses in an evil sounding voice.
Jadeite buries a crystal under the dead leaves outside. (I assume this is outside Hikawa Shrine). ‘This time I’ll get energy to use…’
Inside the shrine, A young priestess (Rei) sits praying in front of the sacred fire.
‘Something

Notes: The lyrics for the opening song, ‘Kirari! Sailor Dream!’ (Sparkle! Sailor Dream) were written by Naoko Takeuchi.

The Minako Aino song they keep playing in the show is ‘C’est la Vie: Watashi no naka no koisuru jibun.’ (C’est la vie: The lover inside me), and it is sung by Komatsu Ayaka herself. I also would like to know who Minako thinks she’s fooling here. Her album is called ‘Venus’, and of course in the song, when she sings ‘C’est la vie’, it sounds exactly like she’s saying ‘Sailor V’.
I personally think Motoki would made a better Mamoru, since he’s older and more manly. I wonder if Sailor V will communicate through the karaoke machine, or if there is a secret message in her songs…

Ami’s civilian identity looks completely different than Sailormercury: She has shoulder length black hair and classes. Also, Sailormercury’s eyebrows are still black, which kind of bothers me, but I guess it would be hard to make them blue. Although Sailormoon’s are blond.
There is a new commercial, for Sailormoon nailpolish and stuff with the slogan ‘Senshi are also girls!’
Ikuko-mama is certainly a lot more young and fashionable than in the anime or manga.
The preview for episode 3 shows Ami and Usagi dressed as priestesses.

Differences from the manga and anime.

Once again, except for the basic elements (the cram school plot), most of the details are different.
The subplot of Ami possibly being an enemy was dropped completely, presumably because of time.
Sailormoon’s new attack is from the manga.
I guess the senshi have bracelets to transform instead of pens. Which I guess makes sense, because they would have them on them at all times. But the bracelet is really cheap looking!
Usagi wears her broach as a necklace. Which I suppose technically makes it not a broach anymore. LOL

So once again an enormous thank you to Claudia, who should not be blamed for the idiotic picture captions which are entirely my fault.

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