By the AP Scout
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
PLOT: Serena and Rini are attacked by a beam that switches their ages, as part of Wiseman's plan to capture Rini. But what happens when they are hit by the beam again and the age switching doesn't stop?
NEW CHARACTERS: None
LENGTH: 44252 words
RATING: N/A/Hentai
COMMENTS: I have to admit, I like anime episode 158. You know - the episode where Usagi and Chibi-Usa switch ages. (the corresponding manga is Act 35) I think it would have been an interesting subplot to explore more, to see how things could have been affected more by such an age-switching. I'll admit, it's one of my favorite cliched plots in general, when done right. Not like this, though. This story is pretty disturbing on more than one level with the age regression, which is, well, an understatement.
The basic plot is that several doses of a Negamoon gem's energy, used by Rubeus, causes Serena to become younger by the day, and Rini is aged so she can have sex with Darien, her dream man. Darien, who, even while dating Serena, sleeps with Raye through the story, but miraculously cleans up after being threatened with bodily harm. (Imagine that!) What is worse is, after Serena is regressed into nothing (which is about eight chapters of regression and its effects on her, which is quite painful to read when you concurrently have Rini too busy masturbating, fondling her extremely oversized breasts and humping Darien to notice that Serena is getting younger and younger), and implanted in Rini as her unborn child, it turns out that Rini has the means to bring Serena back and reverse what was done to them....and she won't.
That's right, you read this correctly. After spending three-fourths of the story about how the sailors can't reverse the process because they don't know how to, and how Rini needs Serena to save her parents, we have a very uncharacteristic about-face where Rini's use of the Silver Crystal turns into an extremely uncool deus ex machina, where whatever the author wishes to change to suit her story is automatically granted due to Rini's new "maturity". There is also the unsettling (not to mention utterly impossible) mechanics of how Rini is Serena's mother and daughter is turned into a casual "Oh, the timeline changed, so it's ok!" coupling of Serena and Rubeus so Rini can have her man (like the mechanics in anything written by Gillian von Karmann, only without the organsmic sunshine). We also have Amy's seeming indifference contributing to the situation that leads to Rini becoming impregnated with her mother. Nice going trying to find a cure there, Amy - glad to know we can count on you! And don't get me started on Raye.
But the regression was most disturbing. The idea that Sailor Moon could become so helpless, and the one person who could (and really kind of should) help her selfishly decides not to. That's not what Sailor Moon is about; age regression or progression merely for the sake of a pairing was always annoying, but this story takes it to the level of completely unbearable and then passes the check onto you. As one swinger put it, Ouch, baby, very ouch.
Sailor Moon and related characters are copyrighted ©1991-2006 Naoko Takeuchi.
