Dear Chibi,

Sailor Moon’s fourth season ‘Sailor Moon SuperS’ tends to get a lot of hate. Too much Chibiusa, no Outer Senshi and way too many filler episodes; these are usually the main arguments I hear. Although I can understand where they’re coming from…I personally really enjoyed SuperS. There, I said it 8D. SuperS is actually not that bad. Chibiusa does a fine job as it’s leading character and I loved watching her relationship with Pegasus slowly grow over the course of the season. It’s so endearing, and rewarding. She also matures and gets heavy character development, and how can that be a bad thing?

The villains are great characters too, especially the Amazon Trio, each with their distinctive personalities and quirks. The slightly crazy, bizarre circus villains makes it ridiculously funny to watch (You can’t take them seriously). Viz Media’s English cast did great job with the voicing and the dialogue (My only issue is them calling Fish Eye, “Fish’s Eye”). All these make for a entertaining watch though, as long as you don’t mind letting the characters do their thing, and the main story unravel in due time.

Packaging

Quite a few of you have been wondering if it’s worth continuing the DVD sets, or starting anew with the Blurays. Today I’ll be sharing with you side by side comparisons of both products so you can decide for yourself :)

Bluray vs DVD limited edition boxsets. Apart from the DVD box being larger the packaging is basically identical (Crisis Compacts not included ;D)

The cover art always looks so pretty in Madman’s releases :3

Perhaps the most surprising difference is that now both versions contain the same sized booklet. The DVD version previously came with a much larger size, almost the same as the DVD cases. Below is a comparison of the size difference:

I feel like this is somehow a mistake, but I’m probably just in denial :’D Seeing how Madman puts emphasis on keeping things consistent, my guess is that it’s not worth their time printing out books in two different sizes now.

Both the DVD and Blurays contain 3 discs with the same art.

There are no differences between the booklets. Here’s a sneak peek at what you can expect inside.

Though the text for the profile pages largely remain the same as the previous booklets (Classic, R, S) the imagery has been changed.

Here’s a comparison of Sailor Uranus and Neptune profile pages compared to previous volume booklet. They don’t really appear in SuperS apart from the TV Special and the SuperS Movie.

Gallery

Click on the thumbnails below for a closer look:

DVD Menus

Consistent with the previous volumes, these static DVD menus feature the same character as the discs. Instead of Moonlight Densetsu, a variation of Super Sailor Moon’s transformation music plays.

The Bluray menus look different and feature animated footage from the show. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take a screen shot for you ^^”

DVD Screenshots

Again, pretty impressed with the video quality of both the DVD and Bluray. Below are screenshots taken from the DVDs. Apart from some minor ‘shaking’ issues at times, I was pretty happy with what I saw (in both formats)

Extras: TV Special

Included in both the DVD and Bluray is the Sailor Moon SuperS TV Special, which contains 3 short episodes:

• A Beautiful Transformation? The Journey and Growth of Crybaby Usagi
• The Return of Haruka and Michiru: The Ghostly Puppet Show
• Chibiusa’s Adventure: The Vampire Mansion of Terror

The first is a compilation episode focusing on how Usagi became Sailor Moon and the battles fought in Season 1-3. A nice recap video, perfect as a bonus material.

Ever wondered what happened to Sailor Uranus and Neptune? We get an original episode showing us just that, though the budget for these specials are quite low unfortunately. The art style leaves much to be desired, but if you can overlook the drawings, these make some pretty funny episodes (Haruka is sick in bed and flirts with a nurse XD Where else can we see that?).

The third episode is adapted from the manga side-story “Chibiusa’s Picture Diary Chapter 1”. It’s about a vampire named Lilica who transferred into Chibiusa’s class at school and preyed on her classmates. Vampires in the Sailor Moon Universe seem kinda weird to me, but they managed to make it work by linking them to the Dead Moon Circus. Some pretty hilarious dialogue in there, garlic included ;D

All in all, I don’t think there’s a huge difference between the DVD or Bluray formats. Both are pretty good products!

What are your thoughts on SuperS and in particular this new release? Comment below and let me know! If you’re interested in owning a copy, they are available in DVD and Bluray (region B). For more Sailor Moon merchandise, check out this shopping guide.

You can also find my other Sailor Moon reviews of Madman’s releases here:
Sailor Moon Part 1 DVD  | Part 2 DVD
Sailor Moon R Part 1 DVD Limited Edition | Part 2 DVD
Sailor Moon R The Movie~ The Promise of the Rose
Sailor Moon S Part 1 DVD Limited Edition | Part 2 DVD
Sailor Moon Bluray
Sailor Moon R & S Limited Edition Bluray
Sailor Moon Crystal: Set 1, Set 2, Set 3