Hotaru Nomoto (Moon) and Yume Takeuchi (Mercury) are the new cast standouts. Hotaru keeps Usagi consistent with her previous character development, which is great.
We get to see vulnerability from Mamoru and feels from the Outers' return.
Nehellenia finally gets a proper amount of time on stage! She's regal and menacing and I love her.
The Swan Lake-esque approach to Helios. Nightmare!Helios was a nice twist on the story. He probably could been around longer or revealed a bit later, but I still appreciate this move.
The Golden Crystal's location is (thankfully) figured out relatively early in the story.
The staging and costuming are beautiful, as usual. Eternal Sailor Moon has never looked better.
The Bad:
Why the heck wasn't the Kaleido Moon Scope introduced earlier? It's a little strange that Moon Gorgeous Meditation isn't used until late in Act 2, and then the item is made completely irrelevant shortly thereafter.
There's a lot of nothing that happens in this show.
The Meh:
Chibi-Usa was set up well in the first half of the show, but under-utilized in the second half. There's a huge missed opportunity to address Chibi-Usa's character arc, particularly her desire to be a grown-up. (Side note: the fact that I even want to see more Chibi-Usa in the first place is a huge credit to the creative team.)
As fun as it is to see the Circus doing circus things, some of that time could've been dedicated to fleshing out Chibi-Usa instead.
The rest of the Inner Senshi didn't really stand out to me. I couldn't find anything bad to say about them, but I couldn't find anything particularly positive, either.
It's a little odd for this show to lean so heavily on references to the 90s anime (the dream mirrors, etc.) after the last three musicals have followed the manga more closely.
Certain moments between Mamoru and Helios in Act 2 needed a stronger foundation in their earlier interactions.
Hotaru (Usagi) has this acting quirk where she tends to smile. A lot. It makes Usagi come off as unaffected by the events of the story when she really shouldn't be.
Overall: The new cast is off to a good start and the returning cast keeps getting better. It's not particularly deep or profound (that's the Dream arc for you), but this show still brought something new to my least favorite story arc. However, they played it safe by falling back on things that had been done before and it often felt like the show was just marking time until they got to the big story beats (Chibi-Usa and Pegasus, sick Mamoru, Eternal Sailor Moon). Going forward, I hope they take a few more chances - especially with character development - because the Stars material is rich with opportunities to do something different.
Amour Eternal
The Good:
The Bad:
The Meh:
Overall: The new cast is off to a good start and the returning cast keeps getting better. It's not particularly deep or profound (that's the Dream arc for you), but this show still brought something new to my least favorite story arc. However, they played it safe by falling back on things that had been done before and it often felt like the show was just marking time until they got to the big story beats (Chibi-Usa and Pegasus, sick Mamoru, Eternal Sailor Moon). Going forward, I hope they take a few more chances - especially with character development - because the Stars material is rich with opportunities to do something different.