First of all I want people to understand when I refer to certain seasons of Sailor Moon as "bad" that is in the context of my considering no episode of Sailor Moon completely without value. I think it's worth it to eventually watch all 200 of the 90s Anime and 39 of Crystal, just for the former maybe not necessarily in order.
Even the good seasons have episodes I don't think make good first impressions, and even the bad seasons have some gems that are among my absolute favorites. But some seasons are more of the latter then the former.
But first let me remind people of my take on how the 90s Anime compares to the Original Manga/Crystal versions of the story. Naoko Takeuchi's version of Sailor Moon is undeniably better written, the overarching storyline is far more coherent and it lacks the plot holes and dumb contrivances that the franchise is known for thanks to the 90s Anime. And yet without all the 90s Anime's fluff and filler, without it's further exploration of the characters, I would not be nearly as invested in these characters as I am.
When breaking down the seasons of the 90s Anime, I am perhaps more inline with conventional fandom opinion then I can usually be expected to be. Season 1 and S are the must see great seasons, R and SuperS are the difficult to watch seasons. While SailorStars being the season we westerners didn't get right away doesn't instill as strong a reaction either way, it's perhaps the definition of average for SM.
But when I call R one of the bad seasons, I need to qualify that. Because The Doom Tree Saga is technically part of R in terms of branding and MAL classification. But in both spirit and execution it really is a Coda to season 1, being the end of Junichi Sato's run as Series Director.
Which leads me to the mildly controversial take that as a complete picture Season 1 and the Doom Tree Saga are better then S. And now I need to commit the ultimate Blasphemy one can commit in Leftist Anime Fandom and actually express some criticism of Ikuhara Kunihiko-Sama.
When people briefly mention Ikuhara's involvement with Sailor Moon as mere preamble for their deep dive Utena analysis. They will say how he was in charge of Sailor Moon S and the R Movie Promise of The Rose. But they will ignore how he was also series director of the Bad seasons.
I like Ikuhara's original works, Utena is a must see masterpiece but it's probably Penguindrum that personally speaks to me the most. And in his contributions to Sailor Moon I like him as an Episode Director (under which designation I'll include the movie he directed which is the best of them and perhaps an ideal microcosm of what the 90s Sailor Moon Anime is), all his episodes are at least above average and they include a number of my absolute favorites.
But as a Series Director of something that was in fact an adaptation of someone else's artistic vision, he was the worst of the 3 the show had. S was great in-spite of Ikuhara's series direction, it was great because it's source materiel was perhaps the Manga at it's best, because it introduced some of the most popular characters in Anime, and because it's the only season that had all of the 90s Anime's best writers working on it. But I place it below season 1 for a reason, it does have issues, and frankly every one of them is exactly what the Series Director's job was, to keep the overall plotline from becoming a mess. It's a Hot Mess that manages to be beautiful and moving in-spite of it's lack of coherency, but it's still a mess.
Now in terms of adapting the Manga the way Toei insisted on adapting it, the Dark Kingdom arc had an advantage over the others. That's the one arc where even the Manga/Crystal feels like it's following an episodic Tokusatsu superhero show formula. Every other Arc in the Manga really does get into the main storyline right away and so an adaptation meant to run weekly all year long, expanding the story without even knowing the endgame up front, will inevitably go off the rails a bit.
Still I do think a lot of why season 1 and the Doom Tree Saga work so well is because of Sato, he also directed Hugtto Pretty Cure in 2018 proving he's still got it. Sato is simply better suited then Ikuhara for being in charge of an episodic kid's show. Sato also continued to return as an Episode Director or sometimes just Storyboarder after his time as Series Director ended, though not during R. His episodes continue to be highlights though not as much as Ikuhara's.
However Takenouchi Kazuhisa was a recurring Episode Director of season 1 who left after the Doom Tree Saga, the Doom Tree Saga's finale was his last Sailor Moon episode, so he might have made a small difference. His notable contributions to season 1 include episode 3(2 of the DiC order) Talk Radio which I'd kind of argue is where the 90s Anime found it's voice, the introduction episodes for both Mars and Jupiter, Ice Princess which is another highlight for Sailor Jupiter fans, and Fractious Friends which has proven to be a very memorable episode. He also did Storyboards for episode 3 of Utena.
I also like to give the 90s Anime's Writers more credit then most do, but they don't much help explain the difference between the Doom Tree Saga and the rest of R. Though Yanagawa Shigeru being seemingly the chief writer of the overall plot of the Doom Tree Saga is someone fans of that arc should take special note of, as I have, but I've still yet to watch any of his non Sailor Moon stuff since most of it hasn't been Dubbed.
The thing about R and SuperS being the "bad" seasons is that they're bad for opposite reasons.
SuperS is the season that actually is what a lot of people cynically think every season of Sailor Moon and it's Mahou Shoujo imitators are always like. A much larger percentage of the season is skippable, and the filler this time truly does get annoyingly repetitive. Every other season gives us something we might call a mid-season finale at least 13 episodes in, but SuperS leaves us stuck with the Amazon Trio doing their creepy routine for over half the season's total episode count before we get anything that feels even remotely like progress.
The 90s Anime Black Moon Saga besides being an overly complicated adaptation of a Time Travel plot (so already on shaky ground at making sense). Also does something no other season does. In every other season each episode fits into one of 2 maybe 3 categories. Either it's a stand alone Monster of the Week episode that tells it's own complete story, or it's something important to the overall plot, and sometimes it might manage to be both. The Sailor Moon R version of this saga however does the only type of Filler I actually consider a problem, filler that's pretending it's not filler. It has multiple episodes that are about the overall plot with no MOTW in sight, that tries to evoke the emotional gravitas of a game changing episode, yet nothing actually happens, none of the Antagonists are permanently or ever temporarily disposed of, and no one learns anything they didn't already know, nothing about the status quo even superficially changes.
So in both cases it's not the individual episode quality per se that is the issue. It's what it feels like to actually go through all of it so I can finally say on MAL that I've completed Sailor Moon. But I will still say the Black Moon Saga has more actually sub par episodes, almost any SuperS filler episode is at least fine, it's midway point finale is better then it's build up deserved, and it's final stretch of episodes are actually better then the climax of S.
Sailor Stars is again difficult for me to pass judgment on. It feels like less of a chore to binge, and has many memorable moments, and yet besides the opening 6 episodes doesn't reach any of the prior season's highs.
Sailor Moon Crystal has no Bad Seasons. Even the Black Moon Saga was finally vindicated in my mind by seeing it as the Author truly intended (like how many feel about The Snyder Cut) and may be the subject of it's own post someday. And now I'm hoping the Eternal films can do the same for the Dream Arc.
The people who hate Crystal, even if that antagonism is really only directed at season 1, are simply not Sailor Moon fans. I don't care how many memeable jenky stills you throw onscreen in your YT video. Story wise this is the characters and story finally being presented in dramatized form as their creator intended. If that feels to you like a betrayal of why you like Sailor Moon, then you don't like Sailor Moon, you like Sailor Moon fan fiction. And that's fine I in many ways ultimately like the Fan Fiction more too. And the 90s Anime is closer to what I generally want from this Genre, but even it isn't fully there yet.
I appreciate Sailor Moon in all it's forms, from the PGSM Live Action show to the insane Last Dracul musicals. My love for this franchise is unconditional, but not without the ability to critique it.
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