On Wed, 19 Apr 2000, Phil wrote:
Chapter 7 of Sukeban Senshi! Wai!
First off, let me say I love this grim, gritty, almost brutal, yet
endearing story. The wonderful prose and excellent story flow overcome
any and all errors in grammatical form, and that is the greatest
compliment I can pay to a fic. People, if you haven't read Sukeban
Senshi, give it a try - it's worth every moment of your time.
I'd have to agree -- I stumbled across this story with the first part of
this chapter, and while some of the earlier bits (especially chapter six)
are a bit ecchi for my tastes, it's mostly non-gratuitous, and actually
manages to be something close to tasteful for some rather odd goings-on,
and uses them for a definite purpose in both plot and characterization.
Soban is a very interesting character, with echoes of Usagi shining
through at interesting moments and in novel ways, and it's also
interesting to see hints of how the other Senshi developed differently
here, without Usagi's influence -- Ami being more shy and isolated at
first, for instance, or Makoto being rougher and more violent.
Now to my second point. This one is more of a personal opinion than
anything else, so feel free to disregard it. It concerns Part 3 where
Soban gets a rapid power-up. The tone of the story changed extremely
quickly, to the point where it was fairly jarring, compared to the
conversational tone of the fic thus far. The scenes were still
impressive, and the descriptive narrative was awesome, but somehow it
still felt a little lacking.
This may have been your intention - to separate and therefore dramatize
the ending - so I'm trying to remain objective here. I'll just say that
one of the most appealing things about Soban is her tough exterior and
hidden vulnerabilities (and come on, who can resist tough girls with
weaknesses? :), and the way she gets the job done despite those
problems. For her to turn into a 'God-eater', lessens much of that
earlier characterization, IMHO.
My personal concern is that suddenly everything and the kitchen sink is
being thrown into the plot, and I think it's suffering for it. The
premise from the beginning was a simple and interesting one -- the
leaderless Sailor Senshi fighting a losing battle against the Dark
Kingdom, with Soban now entering the picture to change it in unforseen
ways. However, now we have the villains from just about every Sailor Moon
season running around simultaneously, allied with each other, *plus* we've
got the entire cast and plot of Blue Seed (which I must admit I've never
seen) thrown into the mix. Leaving aside the continuity problems (would
Wiseman still be there without chasing Chibi-Usa into the past? Where is
Pegasus hiding? What's Fiore's story, if Mamoru's parents are still
alive? Why haven't the Senshi run into anyone but the Dark Kingdom yet,
if the others are out there taking Heart Crystals/Dream Mirrors/whatever?
If Soban knows Queen Beryl by name, wouldn't she be suspicious of
Mizuno-sama and co. knowing the real names of the 'Grey Princes'/Dark
Generals?), I have to raise the significant question of 'Why?'
For the life of me, I can't yet see what adding all of these elements does
for the story aside from complicating it immensely. For that matter, I'm
not sure I like that Soban does not, in fact, become Sailor Moon or
Princess Serenity or anything like it, as the ongoing thrust of the drama
would seem to have implied up to this point. A scarred and wounded Sailor
Moon would be interesting. So would a Sailor Moon who had to deal with
suddenly *not* being scarred and wounded -- but only when in her magical
form. There's dozens of variants that could work. But a scarred
delinquent with a heart of gold who changes into something bizarre and
goes hunting after the villains from Blue Seed while the Sailor Team
watches from the background... I must confess, I'm losing the focus of
the story.
Of course, this is all just my opinion. And whatever else, I still love
the whole work up to this point -- a darker take on the Sailor Moon world
that still retains a subtle optimism, and a darker character who still has
Usagi's heart underneath the greatly changed exterior and circumstances.
I just think that the great core of the story is being lost to some stuff
I can't see as anything but extraneous. I'd love to be proven wrong and
have it all come together... but I just wanted to voice my concerns.
--
Scott Johnson |
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