Reviews Theatre / Sera Myu

Shin Densetsu Kourin

The Good:

• Some great new songs, such as "Kokoro Tabanete Makin' For The Right", "Yami koso Utsukushii ~Galaxia no Iradachi~".
• Yuri Nishina as Beryl kills it every time.
• The Inner Senshi being controlled by Galaxia is a nice nod to the manga and a great way to refresh a retelling of the Stars arc.
• Nao Takagi (Uranus) and Ayano Gunji (Chibi-Usa) are among my favorite actors in each of their roles. It's not surprising that they survived the infamous cull of actors after this show.

The Bad:

• Poor choreography. It's easily on par with the first two musicals, which were years before this one. If I drank for every instance of step-touch dancing, I would be dead.
• Poor lighting design. I'm no theater expert, so it's pretty bad when even I can pick up on it. "Kokoro Tabanete Makin' For The Right" sticks out to me as a particularly egregious example.
• The ending is a mess and goes on way too long.
• The show tries to do way too much at once. Mashing up Eien Densetsu with SuperS doesn't work.
• Yuuta Enomoto (Tuxedo Mask) and Fumina Hara have zero chemistry.

The Meh:

• Fumina Hara. She has a lovely voice and a balance between gracefulness and humor that works well for later-series Usagi. However, she's saddled with a messy show that throws her right into the deep end with the Stars story for her first acting gig ever. There are now three other actresses who have played/will play Stars!Usagi and every single one of them had a chance to get their bearings in the role for at least a year before their respective Stars adaptations. Also, her dancing is...not very good.
• The Amazon Trio. They get the "meh" category because they're played well, but they just don't belong in this story.

Final Thoughts: This show is infamous within the fanbase, but it's not all bad - in retrospect, I think it suffers from a serious case of Tough Act to Follow after Eien Densetsu. There are some genuinely good ideas at play here, but they were executed sloppily.