Sailor Moon-Volume 10: The Trouble with Rini (1992)

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General		Extras
Category	Anime	Main Menu Audio & Animation DVD Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	1992
Running Time	130:54 (Case: 135)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (65:27)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Junichi Sato
Studio Distributor	Toei Animation Madman Entertainment	Starring	None Given
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Bob Summers Michael Benghiat Lois Blaisch

    There's certainly a lot of Sailor Moon to watch - this is Volume 10 of  Sailor Moon on DVD, and with 6 episodes per disc that brings it to 60 episodes available already. If you've not seen Sailor Moon before, then you should definitely start with my review of Sailor Moon-Volume 1: a Heroine is Chosen.

    The episodes on this disc are:

55. The Cosmetic Caper - Rubeus has worked out where the centre of Crystal Tokyo will be, and sends Birdy to take it over
56. Sailor Mercury Moving On? - Amy has won a scholarship to study in Germany - will she have to leave the Sailor Scouts?
57. Gramps in a Pickle - Rei's grandfather tries to turn the temple into a martial arts school
58. Trouble Comes Thundering Down - the Negamoon forces try to take advantage of Serena's fear of thunder
59. A Charmed Life - magic charms from the charm shop have a sinister effect
60. A Curried Favour - can Serena make a palatable curry for Rini's school's curry night?

    This volume's subtitle is The Trouble with Rini. The strange little pink-haired girl who has forced her way into Serena's household seems to have a private agenda which varies depending on the episode's writer — there's some inconsistency from episode to episode. It's particularly interesting in the first episode, because the hypnosis she used to get into the household wears off briefly. We get to see how Rini's magic works, with her bouncing her Luna Ball (Luna the cat denies the resemblance). Serena and Darian have some mysterious tie to Rini, but we don't learn what that secret is yet (although some of the hints are quite broad). It also appears that Rubeus and his sisters have an interest in abducting Rini, but we don't yet know why that is, either. We get some insight into where she came from, and why.

    Meanwhile, Rubeus has worked out that there are special locations that will become key spots in Crystal Tokyo (Tokyo in 1000 years time). Depending on the writer for a particular episode (yeah, another inconsistency) these are called Star Points, or Crystal Points. Their plan is to fill each of the points with negative energy to subvert the future.

    The Scouts are issued with some new toys: power sticks and wristwatch communicators. Their transformations change once they get their power sticks, and they get some new attacks — Mars' new Mars Celestial Fire Surround attack is quite pretty, but Mercury Ice Storm Blast is probably the biggest ramp-up of power (her bubbles attack seems so insignificant by comparison).

    It's interesting to note that the writers are inconsistent with Serena's transformation — in the first few episodes on this disc she's using Moon Star Power (introduced at the end of the previous disc), but then she reverts to Moon Crystal Power, almost as though they forgot about the change.

    It looks as though several frames were edited from episode 57: I suspect they removed any extreme violence from the fight in preparing this episode for US screening. It makes the story run a little disjointedly, but it's not too bad. This episode is also the least consistent with all the previous episodes: both Rei and her grandfather are misrepresented here, and there are other mistakes.

    The morals for these episodes are inoffensive: wear sun-block to protect your skin, think for yourself rather than always relying on someone else (learn to be responsible by accepting responsibility for your own decisions), be careful not to hurt people by teasing them, there are better ways to deal with fear than screaming, it's your life to make of what you will (don't take charms or horoscopes too seriously), know what to do in an emergency and know where the household first aid kit is located.

    Despite the inconsistencies, these are quite good Sailor Moon episodes.

Video

    The DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and is not 16x9 enhanced. That's the original aspect ratio, as is appropriate for a TV series that was made in Japan in 1992 (the 1995 copyright is for the English adaptation).

    This disc plays all the episodes in sequence. You can select an episode from the menu, but it will play from there to the end of the disc. All the timestamps mentioned in this section are cumulative from the start.

    The picture is a little soft, but rather sharper than all previous discs. Shadow detail is irrelevant to anime. There's no significant grain and no low level noise.

    Colour is slightly less than fully-saturated, but still strong enough to enjoy. There are no colour-related artefacts.

    It is a pleasant surprise to discover that this disc has far fewer film artefacts than previous discs. Only the last episode has really notable film artefacts: hairs at 116:03, and an ink-stain or black fluff at 119:11, for example. There's some telecine wobble, but it is not particularly objectionable.

    There's still plenty of minor aliasing, but the dot crawl on many of the black lines outlining the characters has been dramatically reduced. There is no moire, and no shimmer.

    The black frames where commercials were inserted are a little too long on occasion, but nowhere near the length found on Volume 8.

    There is one small MPEG error at 115:11, but you're unlikely to be troubled by it, and the DIC logo appears for a half frame between episodes 59 and 60 - strange editing. These tiny flaws don't interfere with one's enjoyment of the disc.

    There are no subtitles.

    The disc is single sided and RSDL-formatted; the layer change is at 65:27, between episodes 57 and 58 — exactly where it should be, and where it's least visible.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    This disc offers the same soundtrack format as all the other volumes: English Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround encoded, mono. There are no audio artefacts on this disc.

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand. There are no obvious mismatches between dialogue and mouth motion, but a few moments of dialogue feel a little contrived.

    The English title music is credited to Bob Summers. The rather nice song in Episode 56, Only a Memory Away, is by Michael Benghiat and Lois Blaisch.

    Your surrounds and subwoofer get no signal at all from this soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is lightly animated with a moving background behind a picture of Serena and Rini (just like the front cover) with musical underscoring. It offers a choice of which episode to start at, but when you select an episode it starts playing there and then continues through the remaining episodes.

    The R1 and R4 versions of this disc offer the same features. There is nothing to pick between them, really, except that ours is PAL and theirs is NTSC. Even the package artwork is the same. The main difference is that our episodes are numbered (apparently the R1 menus miss out on the numbering).

    More Sailor Moon episodes, extending the story of the Negamoon, and looking more into Rini.

    The video quality is quite good, and noticeably better than earlier episodes.

    The audio quality is adequate.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall