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

I was lucky enough to be given a fansub of this movie many years ago, before I really knew anything about the original version of BSSM. It might sound corny, but this movie changed my life. I knew the dub playing on television wasn't the real version, but I didn't know how much had been changed, or how much better the original was, until this! The "R" in the title stands for "romance, but the theme of this movie is definitely loneliness. Mamoru was lonely when he lost his parents as a child, Fiore was lonely when he had to leave his only friend, the Senshi were lonely before they met Usagi. . . the only thing I would have to disagree with is that Usagi is the answer to all loneliness. But then, Usagi is the answer to just about every problem in BSSM, so I shouldn't be surprised :-P . What surprised me about this movie when I first saw it was that this wasn't some dumbed-down little girls' show like the television dub made it out to be. The characters were much less one-dimensional, the plot darker, the voices infinitely less annoying, and it was my first exposure to the recurring theme of homosexuality in BSSM. Fiore is like an obsessed ex-lover of Mamoru's rather than an estranged friend. This is good not only for the comic relief of the girls' speculations on Mamoru's sexuality, but also that Fiore is a very sympathetic character-- even those uncomfortable with homosexuality (as I was when I first saw this) can't help feeling sorry for him, knowing Mamoru will never return his affections the way he wants. The crew interview compares the movie to _Romeo and Juliet_, which may be a bit much, but their Shakespearean influence definitely shows, as this is by far the most beautiful and dramatic of the BSSM movies.