Alternative Title: Gone With the Wind + Squirming Pillar of Rats

First Aired: 7th November 1992

After Luna is saved by a fat blue cat by the name of Rhett Butler, his owner, a little girl, is targeted by Zoisite as the next Rainbow Cystal, and the Sailor Senshi rush to her defence. As it transpires, however, Rhett Butler is the real Rainbow Monster, and Luna must face travails like she has never come up against before: mostly, affection from Rhett Butler.

Also, rats. A shit-ton of ’em.

This is a silly silly silly episode, and I love it.

Luna is having a terrible day. She’s being chased through the streets by an angry mob of cats, for some reason, maybe they don’t like that she can talk. I imagine that invokes cat-envy.

This scene may look a little slapdash, but boy is it funny, especially that little pink jerk on Luna’s tail. They make the overly-simplistic artwork for the dick-cats work for the humour.

Just before the tom cat leader can attack Luna, rescue comes in the form of Tuxedo Kamen.

I guess roses have gotten pricey

Oh did I say Tuxedo Kamen? I meant this guy.

Awesome.

I love the fact that they’re taking the piss out of Tux. Even more than that, I love this cat. He’s fat, he’s weird-looking, he’s got random hair sticking out every which way, and he maintains this blank stare through the entire episode, as if he’s mellowed out on Valium.

Luna isn’t exactly thrilled with her savior, but he takes the liberty of licking her poor chewed tail.

Aww, she’s completely disguted. How sweet

I have to say, Luna is fantastic in this episode. Every indignant screech, every protestation is delivered with the utmost hilarity.

The romantic (?) scene between the cats is interuptted by the fat blue cat’s owner calling him. His name? Rhett Butler. I LOVE THIS.

Oh I don’t know, there’s something Clark Gable about him

The cute little girl and Rhett Butler are being spied upon by Zoisite, who is feeling particularly evil today, possibly because this will be the seventh and final Rainbow Crystal.

“Hey, focus you stupid crystal. Which one is center-frame!? I’ll just go with the little girl, that won’t come back to haunt me”

Little does Zoisite know that he’s about to have a worse day than Luna.

Luna is lamenting her poor, injured tail in the park (where else? I’m actually going to start a “park” tab from now on) with Ami, Makoto and Usagi. It seems they’re meeting up to discuss Sailor Senshi stuff. Where’s Rei, you ask? Ami completely dobs her in by revealing that, because it was Sunday, Rei felt like going on a date instead.

Usagi was none too pleased. They’ve got some great expressions in this episode

But it’s not going so well for Rei. She’s using a payphone to call Mamoru up for a date (what is this, the 18th Century?), but only gets his answering machine.

This is the prologue to Phone Booth starring Colin Farrell

She’s all nervous, it’s really rather adorable to lose her normally unflappable composure when Mamoru’s involved. The message she leaves in the background is pure gold, I really want you to take a look:

“Hi Mamoru, it’s cute little Rei! I found this very unusual cake, I’d like for you to try it. It’s called ‘tiramisu’. I know I don’t look it, and I don’t mean to brag, but I’m very hip and know what’s new.”

LOL.

So where is Mamoru? He’s home, he’s just not picking up a) because he’s a dick who can’t be bothered to talk to his girlfriend, but continues to string her along and b) he’s brooding over the last Rainbow Crystal.

“…I hate tiramisu”

The girls in the park, meanwhile, are using Ami’s supercomputer to track down the last Rainbow Crystal. Quite why they could only do this now, as opposed to the last 6 crystals, is a matter you’ll have to take up with the writers.

I know it’s weird but I really like what they’re wearing in this episode – they perfectly matched the colours in a way only the early 90s could manage

Either way, they get a general location and head to a house. When they arrive, Luna notices that none other than Rhett Butler is sitting in the window. WHAT ARE THE ODDS? Luna is not thrilled, and announces that she’ll hang back on this mission.

Usagi’s mocking is relentless.

That’s racist, Usagi

Luna’s response? “Excuse me, I’m not that ugly.” BURN.

She’s left alone for the whole of 3 seconds before the Evil Cat Gang turn up. That’s actually an awesome name, I’m pretty sure that was the name of the evil organisation in the Ranma 1/2 RPG on the Super Nintendo, in a sentence that could have been completely exercised from this review.

Ami knocks on the door of the house, and it’s answered by the super cute little girl. Ami asks if her mother or father is about, and we get this response:

“Oh OK, cool. Where does Mummy keep the jewelry?”

Guys this little girl is like fucking 6 years old. Her parents suck. The Moon Stick begins beeping when she opens the door, so the Sailor Senshi presume that this girl must be one of the Rainbow Monsters, RIGHT?

Rhett Butler (DEFINITELY not the monster) squirms out of the girls arms and runs off, drawn towards Luna’s plight, and the little girl runs after him…

…down a dark fucking alley. See parents, this is why you don’t leave your 6-year-old at home chaperoned by a cat and without telling her not to open the goddamn door.

Why? Because shit like this happens:

“SURPRISE!”

Luna, at this point, is saved from murder by Rhett Butler once again. These action scenes with the cats are really good, stills don’t do them justice. Rhett Butler, carrying Luna, spins on a manhole cover and the two escape into the sewer.

Quick question, do manholes leading into massive sewers actually exist? I’ve only ever seen them in fiction and CSI.

Zoisite, having successfully BEATEN UP A LITTLE GIRL (prick), attempts to use the Black Crystal on her to unleash the monster but oh noes – it doesn’t work! Zoisite realises that it must be “that ugly cat” that is the final Rainbow Monster.

His revelations are cut short by the Sailor Moon, Mercury and Jupiter… who don’t all quite fit in the alleyway.

The weirdest bit is when Sailor Mercury falls over, and Sailor Jupiter stares at her vagina for, like, 8 seconds.

Stop stealing from my fanfiction, jerks

Zoisite runs away (naturally), and the Sailor Senshi return the little girl to her bedroom, still thinking that it’s she who is the Rainbow Monster.

Zoisite teleports into the sewer system to look for Rhett Butler, and he’s none too please about it.

Guess.

All the magical powers in the world can’t stop you stepping in liquid poo

Give it 5 minutes.

I love this. The show knows how much we hate Zoisite, and rather than explore his dark character with nuanced writing, they throw shit on his boots. Perfect, that’s all I wanted.

Over at the little girl’s house, all three Senshi are standing guard like stalwart sentinels.

None of them have noticed that the Moon Stick isn’t beeping at all.

It’s far more important to play the Sailor V video game while the little girl is still unconscious

Meanwhile, Zoisite thinks he’s closing in on the Rainbow Crystal, when he notices that the wall is awfully warm and squishy…

“…uh oh”

KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT

His scream is amazing. Not one of the monsters thus far have been more terrifying than this tunnel of poorly-drawn sewer-rats.

Rei’s Sunday is going just as poorly as Zoisite’s (no it’s not) as she has no date. Yuichiro (see last episode) bumps into her and sort of asks her out, but he takes Rei’s slight hesitancy (she’s really rather pleased) as rejection and he runs off. It’s a great little interaction, especially with the posters behind them.

Just to underline the references of the episode, Rei thinks to herself that Yuichiro’s flightiness is “just like Gone With The Wind”. You rock, Sailor Moon.

Back to the sewer. Luna isn’t happy about hanging out with Rhett Butler, but after she notices that he hurt his leg saving her, she seems to warm to him a bit.

Awww. He looks like me

And then Zoisite turns up, followed by a sea of FUCKING RATS.

You know what, Zoisite, you can come back for the crystal, just focus on escape those rats for now yeah?

They try to escape through a tiny drainpipe, with Luna screaming her head off – she seems far more concerned about the rats than Zoisite, for obvious reasons – but like the goddamned snake that he is, Zoisite can slither.

Notice where is anus is. That means she’s kicking him in the balls. Assuming he hasn’t been fixed

Oh… OH GOD, Zoisite, WHY? You can see STAINS on the ground

Thus begins a crawling chase, with the most horrific of all scenes you’ll ever see.

NO NO NO NO NO

Ami and Makoto have finally figured out that it was Rhett Butler the Moon Stick was reacting to, which I wouldn’t normally bother mentioning except that I love Usagi’s “gaming” face and wanted an excuse to include it, so here it is:

This is how I look when I’m playing Battlefield 4

Luna and Rhett Butler are cornered by the river by a freaking PILLAR O’ RATS. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Pillar O’ Rats has a creamy nougat filling of Zoisite. His response?

“Hi. All’s well that ends well I guess.”

“They elected me. I’m their king, now.”

What the freaking fuck? – as my sister would say.

Sailor Mars makes her entrance, and does the only logical thing by trying to burn the Tower of Ratness, but her speech about defending “the love between cats” allows Zoisite to transform Rhett Butler into a Rainbow Monster.

Awwww he’s still cute

Laughing in his victory, Zoisite is struck by a rose and drops the crystal, to which Tuxedo Mask lightly jogs over too, then runs off. All this happens in about 4 seconds and that’s all he does in the entire episode. Jesus, Tux.

“Hi. Fuck you. Bye.”

If it weren’t bad enough to have mistakenly attacked the wrong target, stepping in sewer shit, been chased by rats, squirmed through a poop-pipe, had thousands of rats crawling all over you, you then lose the Rainbow Crystal, then entire point of all of this?

You’ve got to feel a little bad for Zoisite.

Monstor Rhett Butler doesn’t seem too bothered about anything in particular, but seems to remember Luna (enough to save her from a fall), which is something even Rei’s Grandpa-Monster couldn’t do.

Yeah I don’t remember this scene in Gone With The Wind

Finally, the other three Sailor Senshi arrive, and after being mean to a largely bewildered and not-at-all aggressive Rhett Butler-Monster, Sailor Moon restores him back into a cat. He even yells “Refresh!” like the human targets – it’s adorable.

With Rhett Butler and the little girl reunited, the Sailor Senshi embark on a jolly old round of mocking Luna once again, but despite her denials that she feels anything for Rhett Butler, we get one last homage to Gone With The Wind.

Great episode, keeps ticking along nicely, the animation occasionally gets simplistic, but they make it work through humour, and hey – we all love episodes dedicated to Luna.

Episode Score: 4/5

Monster Score: 5/5 (I love how scary-yet-non-plussed he was, and though he wasn’t on screen for too long, nor did he actually attack anything, I fell in love.)

Number of Rats: Too Many

Published by VK

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