Act 1 - Usagi, Sailor Moon (episode)


 * This page is for the first episode of the second anime series. For the first chapter of the manga, please see Act 1 - Usagi, Sailor Moon.

Act 1 - Usagi, Sailor Moon is the first episode of the second anime series. It first aired in Japan on July 5, 2014.

Summary
Usagi Tsukino, a fourteen year-old eighth grader, discovers that she is the Sailor Senshi named "Sailor Moon".

Plot
Usagi is in bed, sound asleep and dreaming about a princess and a prince. Her slumber is disturbed, however, as she is woken up by the sound of her alarm clock. Realizing that she is late for school, she gets ready, and gets her lunch from her mother, who was calling her daughter downstairs while reading a newspaper that featured an article about Sailor V.

On her way to school, she accidentally steps on a cat. She apologizes to the cat, but the cat scratches her face. Usagi realizes that the cat wanted her to take off the Band-Aids on its forehead, and she removes them to reveal a crescent moon on its forehead. Usagi stares at the cat for a few seconds and realizes that she is still going to be late for school and runs off after hearing the bell. Meanwhile, a mysterious blonde man in an unidentified location creates a humanoid creature from the ground.

Usagi hurries to school, but is pulled out of class and put out in the hall instead for being late. She cries for a bit and then pulls out her lunchbox and starts to eat, having missed breakfast. Haruna Sakurada, Usagi's homeroom teacher, comes out into the hall and reprimands her for eating in the hall as well as her bad test score, 30/100. Usagi is greeted by her best friend, Naru, and Umino, a classmate whom Usagi is not particularly fond of. Umino gloats about his test score of 95/100 (while thinking it's a game) while Naru teases Usagi for acting like a boy. Naru mentions that she couldn't believe Umino made a higher grade than she and Usagi notes that Naru is pretty, smart, and from a polite society and thinks that Naru's test score of 85/100 is very good.

Later that day, the students head out to eat lunch, and a classmate, Yumiko, remarks that there was another break-in at a jewelry store. Umino points out that the burglars were caught, due to Sailor V's influence. Usagi asks who Sailor V is, and Umino explains that she is a well-known sailor-suitedchampion of justice, and is rumored to be a special detective from the police headquarters. Usagi's friends then say they understand why someone would want to steal jewels and Usagi remarks that she likes rubies and pearls. Naru mentions that her mother's jewelry store has been having a big discount sale and invites the girls to come with her after school, an offer that the girls agree to enthusiastically.

After school, Usagi, Naru, Yumiko, and another classmate, Kuri, head over to OSA-P, where Naru's mother is enthusiastically promoting her store. Naru wonders why her mother is acting strange, as she has never promoted a sale before. While Usagi's friends marvel over the jewelry, Usagi is upset because she has no more allowance, and is unlikely to get any jewelry anyway, due to her bad English grade. She leaves the store, crumples the test into a ball, and throws it over her shoulder where it lands on the head of a strange man in a tuxedo, who calls her a "bun-head" and makes fun of her test score. The man throws the test back at Usagi, telling her to study harder, and Usagi yells at him to mind his own business. After Usagi leaves, the man smiles to himself and says that at this jewelry store, he might find the Silver Crystal.

Not wanting to go home, Usagi makes her way to the Game Center Crown, a local game arcade. Usagi spots a Sailor V Game poster, and ponders what it would be like to be Sailor V. Usagi enters the arcade and decided to play the Sailor V game, but is unable to defeat the enemies in the game. Usagi is greeted by Motoki Furuhata, who offers to help her with the game. The two hear a noise from behind and turns to find the cat that Usagi found that morning. She wonders how the cat was able to get inside inside the game center, and Motoki mentions that the cat has been wandering around for a few days. Usagi laughs and points out that the cat has a crescent-shaped "bald-spot" on its forehead. The cat stares and growls at her, and Usagi nervously decides to go home.

Usagi returns home and her mother asks for Usagi's test. Reluctantly, she shows the test to her mother, who becomes furious. Usagi is kicked out of the house not long before her brother, Shingo Tsukino, approaches the house on his way home from school. He asks if she got sent out again, kicks her, and calls her stupid. Usagi angrily kicks back, attempting to re-enact Sailor V's "Sailor V Kick", but Shingo closes the door, causing her to hurt her foot. She cries loudly, and Shingo and his mother try to ignore her.

Elsewhere, girls and women who have bought jewelry from the Osa-P sale are becoming increasingly lethargic. Naru's mother feels the energy she has collected and muses that her energy-stealing jewels work well, but the one thing she is looking for is not in the jewelry store. Naru hears her mother talking to herself and enters the room calling her. Naru's mother turns toward her with a threatening look on her face, which frightens Naru.

After being let into the house, Usagi returns to her room, complaining about her mother's reaction to her test score. Usagi takes a nap and is scratched and woken up the bald-spot cat, and the cat says that it is rude that she called her crescent moon a "bald-spot." The cat then introduces itself as Luna, and claims that she has been searching for Usagi, thanking her for taking the bandages off her forehead, but Usagi assumed that it is a dream and decides to go to back to sleep. Frustrated, Luna wakes her up and gives her a brooch, telling Usagi that she has been chosen to be a guardian. Usagi puts it on and Luna instructs her to shout, "Moon Prism Power, Make Up," and Usagi transforms into Sailor Moon. After becoming Sailor Moon, Usagi hears Naru's screams through her glowing odango covers, and she and Luna rush off to save her.

Back at OSA-P, Naru is being attacked by her mother, who turns out to be a monster that tied up the real Mayumi Osaka in the basement, when Sailor Moon bursts in and tells the youma to get away from Naru. Seeing the Moon, Usagi then introduces herself as the Guardian of Love and Justice, Sailor Moon. The youma awakens the people, whose energy has been drained from the fake jewels, commanding them to kill Sailor Moon. After dodging a drained customer, Usagi cuts her knee and cries out in pain. Luna tells Usagi to fight, but Usagi but she is in tears, terrified, and starts to cry, activating her odango covers and sending out a large sonic vibration. The vibration breaks a window, and an unseen man yells at Sailor Moon to stop crying. After Sailor Moon stops, Luna tells her to use her tiara. She uses Moon Tiara Boomerang, destroying the youma. Sailor Moon hears the mysterious man as he jumps away and says his name is Tuxedo Mask.

Elsewhere, the mysterious blonde man from earlier is watching everything that happened on a crystal ball, and says that Sailor Moon is "not bad," stating he must get his hands on the Silver Crystal.

The next day, Naru tells other girls in her class about how she was saved by a girl in a sailor outfit. A few feet away behind a building, Usagi (with Luna) grumbles and thinks to herself that it wasn't a dream at all. Outside, a blue-haired girl feeling a rain drop and running away.

Changes from the Manga

 * Usagi never has a dream about Prince Endymion and Princess Serenity.
 * Usagi tries to save both the black cat and Motoki in her dream.
 * Usagi does not have her heart racing after meeting Mamoru for the first time. Instead, she comments that he is weird/snooty.
 * The arcade cabinet that Usagi plays the Sailor V game on is much more advanced than the one seen in the manga, taking into account the change in time setting from 1992 to 2014.
 * When Sailor Moon first transforms, she has a mask included with her outfit that she used to see Naru in danger.
 * Ami Mizuno does not appear in the first act of the manga.
 * Usagi does not know Motoki's name and instead calls him "Onii-san"; she does not find out his name until Act 5.
 * When Sailor Moon uses her tiara to destroy the youma, the tiara nearly decapitates the youma before it turns to dust.
 * As the youma was attacking Naru, it claimed Naru's mother was dead (though the next panel shot to the basement, showing Mayumi Osaka was alived, though tied up, with a narrative note informing the reader she was alive).

Changes from the Original Anime

 * Although this episode is a remake of episode one from the original anime, there were some changes from the original, including:
 * Ami Mizuno did not make a cameo in the first episode, nor did she appear or was even mentioned until the eighth episode.
 * Yumiko, Kuri and Motoki did not appear in this episode.
 * Usagi never dreamt about Prince Endymion and Princess Serenity.
 * Queen Beryl made her first appearance in the first episode.
 * Mamoru wore his casual clothes in his first appearance.
 * Usagi first met Luna by saving her from a group of little kids.
 * The youma was named Morga, with a slightly different appearance.
 * Naru's mother, Mayumi, did not appear at all in the first episode, though Morga mentioned she was locked in the basement.

First Appearances

 * -|Characters=
 * Usagi Tsukino
 * Ikuko Tsukino
 * Luna
 * Haruna Sakurada
 * Naru Osaka
 * Gurio Umino
 * Yumiko
 * Kuri
 * Jadeite
 * Morga
 * Mamoru Chiba
 * Motoki Furuhata
 * Shingo Tsukino
 * Sailor Moon
 * Mayumi Osaka
 * Tuxedo Mask
 * Ami Mizuno
 * -|Items=
 * Transformation Brooch
 * -|Phrases=
 * Moon Prism Power, Make Up
 * -|Attacks=
 * Supersonic Waves
 * Moon Tiara Boomerang

Errors

 * When Usagi is standing in the hall, she seems to be extremely tall, with her waist above the door knob.
 * In one scene, Naru's mother had a weird body shape.
 * One shot of Usagi had been poorly drawn.

Trivia

 * This episode was based off of the manga chapter "Act 1 - Usagi, Sailor Moon".
 * The ending image of the episode says "À suivre", which means "to be continued" in French.
 * This is the first Sailor Moon Crystal episode of 2014, and the first new anime episode of Sailor Moon in over 15 years.
 * The time period is evident in the new anime, as a woman can be seen with a smartphone in her hand as Usagi walks away from her encounter with Mamoru. The game machines at the game center also look much more modernized.
 * The episode gained one million views on niconico in just two days.