"Raye's Day in the Spotlight"- episode #48
(Japanese: The school festival is for me?! Queen Rei's singing- episode
#54)
THE PLOT: Mina is busy working at Raye's temple helping Grandpa sell charms, when Serena, Ami and Lita show up to visit her. Serena asks where Raye is, and Grandpa replies that she's probably busy helping organize her school festival.
Meanwhile, at Raye's school, Raye is busily nagging two doting underclasspersons as they attempt to set up the stage. "I already told you that yesterday! Do I have to explain EVERYTHING a second time??" Strolling off the stage, she spots a pile of loose equipment, and demands, "Who left that there?" The admiring girls are going mushy-eyed over her- er- assertive leadership qualities; when Raye tells them to get back to work, they display broad heart-pupiled eyes. Frustrated, Raye declares that even a cat would be more help at the moment;
at that moment, Serena shows up with Luna and Artemis in tow and offers their assistance. Raye gripes about her incompetant staff, then heads off to rehearse her song for the festival; unfortunately, her assistants get a little color-happy with the lighting. Finally she declares a break and wanders backstage. Serena asks who wrote the song she was singing; Raye informs her disbelieving friend that she wrote all the songs herself, and that it was easy. Artemis concedes that she certainly isn't suffering from a lack of self-esteem.
Meanwhile, Alan and Ann are eavesdropping on the preparations from outside in the branches of a tree. Ann points out that a school festival would be a good place to find energy, and they agree to use the celebration for their own needs.
Back at the shrine, Raye, Serena and the rest of the Scouts discuss the festival. Mina asks how she managed to write all the songs by herself; Raye brags that it was no problem at all. First she came up with the lyrics, then the melodies.... (Meanwhile, we see pictures of a frustrated, teary-eyed Raye surrounded by the crumpled remains of discarded song lyrics.)
On the day of the school festival, Raye's grandpa stands outside the entrance, trying to recruit every attractive schoolgirl who passes by, with little to no success.
Serena and her cohorts attempt a variety of activities with equal lack of success(Mina tries golfing, and Ami and Serena discover themselves to be romantically incompatible).
Alan and Ann, from their vantage point beneath a tree, calmly watch the crowd's energy growing, much to their satisfaction. Unfortunately, as Alan begins to step away from the tree, he finds himself and Ann interrupted by a group of fawning schoolgirls who emphatically declare that they're "perfect." They assess a very confused Alan with a measuring tape and find him to be ideal for their purposes; Ann is found to be a match as well. As the students begin to lead the pair away, Alan speaks up and asks what's going on. The leader introduces herself as the head of the fashion club: their models for the stage show are sick, and they need stand-ins to take their place. Reluctantly, Alan asks what the theme of the show is, to which the girl replies, "Space aliens." "I don't get it! How'd this twit figure out who we really are?" a shocked Alan inquires telepathically. Noticing his startled expression, the club leader asks if he's one of those people who believes in little green men. He tells her "Of course not!" and finds both himself and Ann dragged away.
An announcement over the loudspeakers summons everyone to the recital; Serena and her friends head inside to get seats, while backstage, Alan and Ann find themselves forced into a pair of utterly stupid-looking costumes. Grudgingly Ann points out that the crowd will, after all, be building up a lot of energy. The lights go on, and the two get shoved into the spotlight of the stage. After two more costumes are modeled- first pulp-SF-esque space suits and then squid costumes- the Sailors finally recognize who the models are. Ann notes that the crowd's energy level is rising, and Alan declares, "They want aliens? We'll give them aliens."
As soon as the fashion show ends, Raye's stage act begins. Waiting for the curtain to rise, Serena declares that she's getting stage fright, to which Ami replies that isn't possible because Serena isn't the one singing. Raye's first song begins, and Alan and Ann, from the roof of the auditorium, are overlooking the crowd. Ann chooses a Cardian, and after summoning the monster, the two fade away, leaving the creature to do their dirty work. The monster swoops down over the audience and begins sprinkling gold dust across the crowd; Luna and Artemis tell the Scouts to avoid it, and they hide under the seats until the dust is finished falling. Raye's grandpa asks the barely clothed monster if she wants to come and work at his temple, seconds before he passes out. Crawling out from under the seats, the girls find the rest of the crowd comatose, and proceed to transform.
On the stage, the Cardian ties up Raye and begins draining her energy; Jupiter's attack frees her, but no sooner does she drop to the ground than the remaining Scouts are tied up by the monster as well. Exhausted from the energy drain, Raye manages to stagger to her feet and transform into Sailor Mars. She attacks the Cardian, but discovers to her horror that it has no effect. Before it can finish draining her energy, Moonlight Knight throws a rose, blabs about believing in herself(well, actually, he says, "In the corner of the universe, there's a small planet which plays a beautiful tune") and tells Raye he wants to listen to her beautiful voice once more. The monster launches itself at her again; she manages to jump out of the way, but the scoresheets for her music take the brunt of the attack. Furious, she recalls all the time she spent working on the songs, only to see them ruined in a matter of seconds, and hits the monster with her new attack, Mars Firebird Strike. Weakened, it falls to the ground and releases the other Scouts, giving Sailor Moon time to finish it off with her wand. Somehow, the crowd manages to recover in time for Raye to sing the rest of her songs(she filches Moonlight Knight's speech for the introduction to them).
Later that night, as the crowd gathers around a bonfire, Serena
comments that Raye worked really hard on the festival; Raye informs her
that
it wouldn't hurt her to try it sometime. "And what's that supposed to
mean?"
"That you're a lazy, donut-snarfing couch potato." "Oh yeah? Well,
you're...you're a..."
CHANGED AND CUT SCENES: Not much was changed/cut out. Moonlight Knight's blab about Earth's beautiful melody is even a paraphrase of the speech he gave in the original. Raye's grandpa was a bit more of a lecher in the original than the dub usually lets on: he called the girls at the festival "beautiful" when he tried to convince them to work for him. (Although they did keep the scene where he hits on the Cardian. ^_^) At the end, when the girls are sitting around the fire, Raye originally told Serena, "Shall I give you the dirt on my nail?" which is a Japanese proverb meaning something to the extent of "Why don't you follow my example?" When Serena tells her she doesn't want it, Raye retorts, "This dirt is too good for you. One from my foot would be good enough for you!"
MY COMMENTS:
Out of curiosity, is the first line of Raye's song "There are days when
those
racecars make you blue"? That's what I'm sure I heard it as, but I have
no
idea what racecars have to do with Raye(Haruka maybe, but not Raye).
And does it strike anyone else as odd that Alan and Ann seem to do a
_much_
better job of collecting energy when they do the work themselves? Just a
thought...