Sailor Moon Crystal 1
It's really just kind of rigid and unattractive, and Takanashi's compositions are wildly inappropriate for the material. Admittedly, it is impossible for me to judge this adaptation on its own merits, but I don't necessarily feel like it's entirely supposed to be. I mean, this isn't being marketed to a new generation of fans--it's the culmination of a 2+ year marketing campaign producing 20th anniversary-themed goods targeted at adult female fans of the original, so in some sense it's supposed to complement the main series. Because of that, it's hard to see anything of merit here for a fan of the original who is not entertained by the mere fact that this is a faithful adaptation of Takeuchi Naoko's original manga--leaving aside the half-baked production values, the original series was never great merely owing to any specific property it shared with its source material but because it was the product of a specific group of incredibly talented individuals at a specific point in time who used the source material as a canvas to endlessly elaborate upon until it was transformed into something altogether unique. I want Crystal to be good on its own merits, but I have little expectation that Crystal can excise most of the original anime's most endearing qualities while also hamstringing its own staff's ability to do justice to a faithful adaptation with inadequate production resources and result in something remotely as satisfying.
I can appreciate what it's trying to do stylistically, but the "look" of Crystal is mostly undermined by the fact that "good enough" is not actually good enough. Stylistic cohesion can serve as an adequate balm where the actual production values fall short, and it pains me that the art nouveau elements are limited to eyecatches and a smattering of classic shoujo rose frames because this is a visual concept that could have been really cool if consistently applied. That's a minor complaint, though, and I'm much more concerned with the application of the controversial super-duper-shoujo character design. Unlike some people, I was never against the more faithfully Takeuchi-like character designs on principle, but I was cognizant of the fact that care would have to go into making them "work" in motion because that level of stylization is a double-edged sword and the more complicated the face, the worse it looks when drawn poorly. QUALITY was always less apparent in the original Sailor Moon because Ikuko Itoh's simple, rounded faces lent themselves well to cartoony deformation. We all had a laugh at that one goofy piece of official art with Usagi's U WOT M8 face, but the sad truth is that it wasn't just an anomaly and there were a lot of this in the actual episode. Usagi often looks distractingly vacuous, like a dead fish or a deer or something. The eyes are big and striking and draw the viewer's attention but a lot of the time it doesn't feel like they're actually looking at anything. Some of this is a byproduct of the fact that Crystal is simply less expressive than Sailor Moon by design, but the faces either feel distinctly "on" or "off" model to me, like there are no set proportions. It's hard to convey exactly what I mean. The cold, digital look is also not complementary to the throwback character designs.
Can it improve? Sure; to my knowledge, the dramatic beats are much closer together in the manga, and the upside to this is that it plays to Sakai's strengths as a director since he thrives on teasing the intimate human moments out of fantasy scenarios. Tatsuya Nagamine's struggle to satisfactorily execute his vision in Happiness Charge Precure is an ominous reminder that even talented directors are not infallible if they are completely starved of ED/AD talent to assist in the execution of their vision, though. The already notoriously-stingy Toei has managed to outdo themselves this year by not only taking on an obscene number of concurrent projects but also completely denying all of them the flow of talent they need to achieve any kind of production consistency whatsoever. Short AD cycles, outsourcing, and staff shortages are sucking the life from Hacha, Matsutarou, Kindaichi R, Majin Bone, and virtually everything else they have a hand in that isn't One Piece. Given its legacy, relaxed air schedule, and financial importance, Crystal's middling values and use of CG in situations where savings over traditional animation are likely negligible all seem to imply that it is not above receiving the same treatment. We'll know soon enough.
