Sailor Moon R: The Movie - The Promise of the Rose

A stranger named Fiore returns to Earth. As a sick child, Mamoru once gave him a rose, and that rose remained his only memory of friendship. Now Fiore has come to take Mamoru with him and separate him from the others. The plant he has brought with him is going to strike the Earth. Kunihiko Ikuhara directs for Toei Animation. It is the series' first feature. The idea at its centre comes from somewhere the series rarely goes: jealousy. Fiore is not an evil power but an abandoned child, and his malice grows out of loneliness. The narrative says so directly, and the battles are staged as the equivalent of that feeling. Ikuhara came to it from directing the television episodes, and the visual language here anticipates his later work: symmetrical framing, repeated transitional sequences, symbolic plant imagery. He would go on to make his name with Revolutionary Girl Utena. It runs a little over an hour and can be watched independently of the series; the main cast is introduced and the story closes on itself. Films like this had a large part in Sailor Moon's spread worldwide in the nineties; in many countries audiences met the series here. Who it is for: viewers who like nineties anime and the Sailor Moon series. Who it is not for: the fights repeat, the transformation sequences are lifted straight from television, and the emotional register stays at maximum throughout.