Zoom!

Sailor Venus on Esmerald: "Not only does her attitude bite, but so does her voice!" Sailor Jupiter: "Well, she has the loudest voice in the universe, so I guess we'll know when she's here!"--Sailor Moon

I've downloaded the zoom.com arc and entered the world of online conferencing. (In the '70s wasn't there a PBS children's show titled Zoom!?) I was at an online Meetup event Sunday, and Monday I participated again in my now-online memoir group:  I read them that piece I'd written several weeks ago.  I've also moved the Meetup groups I organize to the online format.

Just finished rewatching the "Dark  Moon" arc of Sailor Moon, which comprises the last two-thirds of the second season.  The story gets pretty convoluted:  a rather bratty younger girl called Rini literally falls out of the sky, who eventually turns out to be the daughter of Serena and Darien's future selves in 3000 A.D. when they're ruling Crystal Tokyo! (She returns to our time in the later seasons and becomes a Sailor Scout herself...) Darien, who's finally become Serena's boyfriend, gets these visions that Serena will be in mortal danger if he marries her, so he dumps her.  Later it turns out that the future Darien was messing with his mind to make sure that their relationship was strong enough for the battle ahead... (Destroy their relationship in order to save it, huh?)

This arc has a hit & miss array of ten villains, including Rini who briefly turns into Wicked Lady because the Wise Man villain has been messing with her mind! Counter-intuitively, over half of them get "redeemed" in the end.  I liked it when Neflyte got redeemed in the first season, and Alan and Ann in the previous Doom Tree arc, but this yields diminishing returns.  I do like the sheer shamelessness of the villainess Esmerald! (The first season villains took their names from varieties of jade, and several of these villains are named for precious jewels.) 

Like the Malachite arc at the end of the first season, this arc is uneven but has some great episodes--particularly after the Sailor Scouts enter the Time-Space corridor to fight the villains, who want to conquer the future earth.  I especially like the moment when Serena's heading off for the final battle and meets her civilian friend Molly, who hints that she knows Serena's true identity and ends up praying for her. (It works better in the original Japanese version--the DiC dub softens the religious aspect.)

Finally did my taxes!