Nothing too exciting or weird in this episode. I mean, the premise is strange -- in order to "awaken" her full power and potential as a Sailor Soldier, Rei must inexplicably pretend to be a pop idol and sing in front of a bunch of sick kids at a hospital -- but other than that, it's pretty forgettable. The plot advances about a millimeter. The youma's boring, and only gets about ten seconds of screen-time anyway. There's not even a whole lot of bickering between the Dark Kingdom freaks (although there is, of course, a little). I therefore make no guarantees as to the quality of this piece -- these "reviews" of mine usually don't turn out very well unless the show offers up something really bizarre or quirky for me to gripe and/or make snide comments about.





Before the credits roll, the audience is reminded of the fact that Ami is now evil. Unfortunately, the Sailor Soldiers themselves must've missed that memo, as they appear to have largely forgotten about the tragedy already (although they do make passing reference to it once or twice). I suppose you could say they've simply accepted the fact that they won't be curing Ami anytime soon, what with her being super-powerful and under the tutelage of the even more super-powerful Kunzite, but just moping about it, and vaguely hoping that a full "awakening" of their respective powers will one day be enough to bring her around, strikes me as a bit defeatist. And anyway I seem to remember that Usagi sat around crying for like six episodes just because she found out Mamoru had a girlfriend. Isn't Ami's turn to the dark side at least as bad? Apparently not; Usagi is all smiles throughout most of this sucker.

The next scene features Mamoru and Zoisite: the latter having been regenerated, he's keen to tell Mamoru who he really is -- he keeps repeating the name "Endymion". They're interrupted by Hina before Mamoru can learn anything else, however, and anyway he seems a bit reluctant to hear what Zoisite has to say, so that's the end of that. He skedaddles with Hina, and Zoisite retires to his fungoid piano room back at the Dark Kingdom caves, whereupon Queen Beryl, Nephrite, Kunzite, and Jadeite all take note of his return before launching into their usual squabbling. Queen Beryl praises Jadeite for gathering the energy necessary to restore Zoisite, but then goes on to give Nephrite a hard time, basically telling him he sucks because he hasn't scored that damn magical Crystal from the Sailor Soldiers yet. Kunzite smirks, and everyone else makes fun of him, causing him to storm off and stalk the Dark Kingdom caves, complaining about his woes to no one in particular. Evil Ami finds him ranting, and proceeds to seamlessly integrate herself into Dark Kingdom politics by arguing with him about something or other and warning him to leave the Sailor Soliders to her (they're her "prey"). Great, just what we needed: a new player for Bicker Bowl XXIII.





After that things take a turn for the Rei-centric. The group talks at Crown about the need to "awaken" their powers to free Ami, and an introspective Rei, on her way home to the shrine, is told by a visiting mother and child that Aino Minako has been singing to sick kids at the local hospital lately. Curious, Rei visits the hospital, and finds that this is true. While hanging around waiting for her to get done signing autographs, Rei is approached by another mother and child, who want her signature: apparently Minako told the assembled group that Rei was a "talent" (a general term the Japanese use to describe a famous person or entertainer) called Mars Reiko. Rei tries to insist that she's not famous, but no one believes her, and the nursing staff and sick kids railroad her into a putting on a show for them sometime. Rei is mortified (remember well her dislike of karaoke), but after getting ragged on by Minako about needing to awaken her power and about how she's a subpar leader, she agrees.

Later, still at the hospital, Minako has another check-up, and a doctor mentions to a nurse that she basically has six months to live. This isn't exactly out of left field, considering Minako's frequent dizzy spells and all the exhortations from Artemis for her to take things slow, but it is a bit of a downer, and I must say I'm curious as to the specific nature of her condition: I'm guessing it must be a brain tumor or something, since she's been having trouble with headaches and dizzy spells and it looks like she's receiving radiotherapy here. Based on the doctor's grim diagnosis, it's possible she's dealing with a glioblastoma multiforme, although those tend to cause fairly serious neurological problems, such as personality changes and trouble with memory; also, with significant radiotherapy some hair loss would probably be evident, and...well, let's just say a cancer of that magnitude would probably make Sailor Soldiering pretty difficult. But hey, I'm not a doctor. It could be anything. (It was good, at least, that she scored a TV-friendly illness; the ratings probably would've dipped a bit if she'd come down with, say, leprosy, or a really bad case of measles).





Meanwhile, Rei heads to Crown to put her singing skills to the test. The speakers soundly trounce her, and she's forced to call Usagi for help. Usagi is delighted, but Rei's first practice session doesn't impress her: her singing's fine, but her face, Usagi tells her, just isn't relaxed enough. Whatever. Anyway, there's a bit in here somewhere about Mamoru and Zoisite, but it didn't amount to anything, so I ignored it (like I said: the plot went a millimeter in this one).

Nephrite, still smarting from the all the badmouthing earlier, then hits on a brilliant new plan to destroy the Sailor Soldiers and get that Crystal. Okay, so he doesn't, he makes a youma out of a rock. Well, it's not his fault; it's a bit late in the episode for anything more complicated than a youma. At any rate, he sics it on the hospital, just as Mars Reiko is about to make her debut in front of the sick kids (she uses her magical mobile phone, in plain public view in a hospital corridor, to obtain some obnoxious, pop idolish clothes). Usagi pushes her out onto the stage and rushes off to fight the youma, and soon meets up with Minako, who helps her out. The monster (a generic critter) is easily dispatched with a few cartwheels and quick magic blasts (Sailor Venus's "Venus Love Me Chain!" and Sailor Moon's "Moon Twilight Flash!"), but as soon as they defeat it, it turns into a green glop that sticks their feet to the floor, leaving them unable to move. Nephrite shows up to gloat, but by then Rei is done with her little concert -- she shows up in the nick of time and blasts Nephrite with a much-improved magical firey attack. He appears to explode, but we see him walking around injured a few scenes later, so I guess he teleported back to the caves at the last second. I don't expect his beloved Queen will be too pleased about this; seems like this guy just can't catch a break.

Minako explains that Rei was able to pull off that big fireball because she had managed to awaken a part of her real power. We're told that it wasn't really about the singing; it was about Rei learning to trust (when she called Usagi and admitted she needed help). Okay, I guess that's all right. Still sounds a bit vague to me, though. Are all of these girls' problems going to be solved by singing and crying at just the right moments? What an easy gig!





The final scene is...interesting. Nephrite, all burned up and hurting from Rei's fireball, gets trash-talked by Evil Ami while wandering the caves, and -- get this -- decides to attack her from behind with what looks to be a circular saw on a stick. Where the heck did that come from? Too bad he didn't think to pull that thing out earlier; the guy's a fruit, but even I'd think twice about messing with him if I saw him swinging that around. Heh heh.

That's all. As I've said, there wasn't anything really overtly silly in this one (actually, it's been a while since those days), and the treacly story wasn't anything special. Not bad, not great.

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