Why Do People Hate Sailor Moon Crystal So Much?

Sailor Moon Crystal (Bishōjo Senshi Sērā Mūn Kurisutaru) spoilers ahead!

Summary

• Sailor Moon Crystal was supposed to be a great return of the Sailor Moon series and as a welcome reboot to the dated original series. As a result, it had a lot of expectations to live up to.
• The series follows the manga significantly more than the original series.
• Sailor Moon Crystal was criticized for being rushed and having bad animation.
• The third season might have redeemed the series, but a lot of fans did not watch it, being too disillusioned by the first two seasons.

Sailor Moon (Bishōjo Senshi Sērā Mūn) is a beloved franchise. The original series are praised and loved so much that trying to live up to it would be very difficult. Sailor Moon Crystal definitely did not.

Positive features

That is not to say that Sailor Moon Crystal doesn’t have good sides. It has one very important advantage of not having all the filler that the original series had, and it followed the manga almost to the letter. For some fans, it was an advantage, but for others, the filler of the original series helped to flesh out the characters. In other words, even the one strong side that Sailor Moon Crystal has is not universally seen as an advantage.

Drawbacks

Some of the most common features that appear in negative reviews are the animation and fact that the anime was rushed to the point where it was difficult to care for characters. The animation was bad upon release; a lot of mistakes since then had been fixed. However, true fans would have obviously watched the anime straight away, and as a result, they were disappointed.

As for the rushed nature of the series, fans comment that the attention of the anime is exclusively focused on Sailor Moon. While it seems to be logical, what fans loved about the original was the friendships that Sailor Moon developed with the rest of the Sailor Soldiers. Through these friendships, Sailor Moon herself was shown to be a good friend, and there was always an opportunity to put someone else into the spotlight for a change. In Sailor Moon Crystal, only Sailor Moon matters. And in a story about friendship, that just doesn’t work out very well.

The third season is believed to be better than the first two, which is good, but it might be a little too late for those who loved the original. Unfortunately, Sailor Moon Crystal did not become the great comeback that people wanted it to be.