Sailor Moon-Volume 13: Time Travellers (1992)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Main Menu Audio & Animation DVD Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	1992
Running Time	108:44 (Case: 110)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (65:15)	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 Angelo Oddi

    The thirteenth volume of Sailor Moon. If this is the first Sailor Moon review you've read, I suggest you go all the way back to the beginning, and start with my review of Sailor Moon Volume 1: a Heroine is Chosen.

    There's one fewer episode on this disc than on any of the previous discs — I guess they had to do this to get a reasonable spread over the discs (I suspect there'll only be five on the last disc, too). The episodes on this disc are:

73. Smart Payoff - whispers and rumours that Ami cheats on exams are spread by a minion of the Dark Crystal
74. Child's Play - Rini's friend, Melissa, turns on her when Doom and Gloom appear
75. Future Shocked - Rini leads the Sailor Scouts into the future
76. Legend of the Negamoon - the Scouts get a briefing from a familiar looking figure
77. Jealousy's Just Reward - the Crystal Palace is attacked by a giant dragon

    This volume is Time Travellers, which makes it no surprise when the Scouts go on a bit of a journey through time...

    It's also no surprise that the time travellers meet Sailor Pluto (given that she's the guardian of time) — she looks more adult than the Scouts we know, but her dark green hair is an odd touch.

    This volume continues the noticeable differences in scripting and sound effects. I can't say that I'm keen on the differences — I'd rather have the old team in place. For example, the whooshy sound when Sailor Moon uses the Moon Sceptre is a bit silly. And the language is just a bit less innocent than it used to be — I don't like that, either. Plus the cutting on either side of commercial breaks is suboptimal — we get a repeat of up to a second after the black screen, which is annoying.

    It is interesting to note that Mercury seems to be using the greatest range of attacks — she's using Shine Aqua Illusion and Ice Storm frequently, but she still uses Mercury Bubbles on occasion. Mars and Venus use the same attacks each time (Celestial Fire Surround and Love Chain Encircle, respectively), and Jupiter seems to have forgotten her Dragon attack. Even Sailor Moon seems to be using Moon Sceptre Activation exclusively. Maybe the fact that Ami is the brightest means that she can remember more attacks?

    Rini's power continues to surprise, especially in Child's Play. Hints at its source appear later. Oh, and Rini's full identity finally comes out; not that it's much of a surprise by the time it's announced.

    Perhaps one of the most irritating parts of the changes in the series is the change in the morals. The morals still appear at the end of each episode, but someone seems to have messed around with them. They refer to footage from episodes, but it's not footage from the episode we've just watched. Moreover, the morals on episodes 76 and 77 look an awful lot like ones that appeared some time back — I'm surprised to see the morals getting re-runs. I wonder if there were some morals that offended someone, so they felt they had to replace them?

    Sailor Moon is building to a climax, which will be resolved in the next volume, the last one in the series.

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, starting at whatever point you select — the main menu simply allows you to select a starting episode.

    The picture is a little soft, but clear enough — it's basically just a bit low resolution (as though it were a videotape master). There's no significant low-level noise or film grain.

    Colour is good; it looks a bit faded, or washed out, but that doesn't interfere with the enjoyment of the transfer. There is no colour bleed nor oversaturation.

    There are noticeable film artefacts in this volume, but they are getting fewer — there are still things like the watermark at 35:24 and the smudge at 46:57, though.

    There is a slight rainbow on Sailor Moon's collar at 46:57 — rainbows are normally not a problem in PAL transfers. There's some aliasing, and quite a bit of dot crawl on the black lines bordering objects, leading to some shimmer, but no serious moiré or MPEG artefacts.

    There are no subtitles, unfortunately.

    The disc is single sided and RSDL-formatted; the layer change is at 65:15, placed in between episodes 75 and 76 — almost invisible. That's odd — normally there has to be equal amounts of data on each layer, so I was expecting to see the layer change appearing in the middle of episode 75. This is much better than I expected.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only one soundtrack, in English Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround encoded, mono.

    The dialogue is mostly clear and comprehensible, even with the fairly high numbers of screeches and screams in these episodes. Emerald's laugh is ear-splitting, too.

    The English title music, and additional music, are credited to Bob Summers and Angelo Oddi.

    This mono soundtrack provides nothing for your surrounds and subwoofer. I hope your centre channel is ready for some work.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu is animated with a moving background and with a musical underscore. All it offers is a choice of which episode to start at.

    The R1 and R4 versions of this disc offer the same features. Nothing to pick between them, really, except that ours is PAL, and theirs is NTSC. Even the package artwork is the same.

    Five episodes that prepare us for the climactic episodes on the next, final, disc. Not a fabulous DVD.

    The video quality is adequate, but it is far from perfect.

    The audio quality is good, and without the touches of distortion that appeared on the previous disc.

    There are no extras on this disc (I still don't count a single page of DVD credits as an extra).

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall