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Sailor Moon: The Novels #3
Mercury Rising
Serena makes a new friend and fights evil at a talent show, afterschool classes, and a shopping mall
138 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1999
2 people are currently reading
172 people want to read
About the author
Lianne Sentar
28 books21 followersHired off her Sailor Moon fanfiction to write the Sailor Moon novels when she was 17 years old, Lianne Sentar has worked as a rewriter in the manga and light novel industry for over a decade. She's adapted more than 100 books, including volumes of Fruits Basket, Saiyuki, Slayers, and Alice in the Country of Hearts/Clover/Joker. She's known for her love of innuendo, rhyming, and cuss words.
In addition to her adaptation work, she's served as head writer and editor of the angry manga/anime review collective sleepisfortheweak.org. She self-published two novels as a teenager and is currently writing the original English-language light novel series Tokyo Demons (http://www.tokyodemons.com).
She lives between the United States and Canada, depending on her feels.
In addition to her adaptation work, she's served as head writer and editor of the angry manga/anime review collective sleepisfortheweak.org. She self-published two novels as a teenager and is currently writing the original English-language light novel series Tokyo Demons (http://www.tokyodemons.com).
She lives between the United States and Canada, depending on her feels.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 23, 2020
As another reviewer mentioned, it’s a little off-putting that this series was Americanized with various pop culture and other references that aren’t true to the original series. On the other hand, we did get a dubbed version in the 90s with ‘Serena’ and ‘Darien,’ so it’s really not all that bad in my view. It brought a little tear to my eye when Border Books and Music was mentioned at the mall.
It’s a little silly that the characters are aware that they’re in a novel based on a tv show. But why not? This is just for fun anyway. :)
It’s a little silly that the characters are aware that they’re in a novel based on a tv show. But why not? This is just for fun anyway. :)
November 1, 2018
If you’re looking for a serious read, you probably won’t like this at all. It’s terribly corny but it rings extremely true to the American dub of the original 1990s Sailor Moon anime series that I grew up with in the early 2000s. This book covers three of the anime episodes where Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury fight the evil minions of the space Queen Beryl who wants to steal human energy to power the Negaverse. They are the episode before Amy joins Serena and Amy’s first two episodes as Sailor Mercury.
The stories are told from Serena Tsukino (Sailor Moon)’s perspective so they are a bit frivolous and rather immature but you have to remember that she’s fourteen in the early nineties. She does come off much more like a middle-schooler than a high-schooler admittedly but she is supposed to be a very immature, rather ditzy girl so it sounds very much in line with her character.
I liked that the writer was able to achieve the feeling of the ridiculousness anime in a novella format. No, it’s not award winning stuff but its still well done for what it was based on. Though they kind of hit Sailor Moon over the head with the Americanization of the world, it really sounded like Serena grew up in New York or another American city rather than in Tokyo since I recognized pretty much all of the pop culture references that were dropped. I can see where this might annoy some readers, especially if they preferred the original Japanese version. There were also several occasions where Serena breaks the fourth wall and thinks about the book the reader is reading. Once that might have been funny but this is done so many times in the novella that it isn’t really funny anymore.
I gave this book 4 stars, mostly for nostalgia reasons. This isn’t a literary masterpiece but I still found it funny over all any way. If you don’t take yourself or your reading too seriously, you might enjoy this book.
The stories are told from Serena Tsukino (Sailor Moon)’s perspective so they are a bit frivolous and rather immature but you have to remember that she’s fourteen in the early nineties. She does come off much more like a middle-schooler than a high-schooler admittedly but she is supposed to be a very immature, rather ditzy girl so it sounds very much in line with her character.
I liked that the writer was able to achieve the feeling of the ridiculousness anime in a novella format. No, it’s not award winning stuff but its still well done for what it was based on. Though they kind of hit Sailor Moon over the head with the Americanization of the world, it really sounded like Serena grew up in New York or another American city rather than in Tokyo since I recognized pretty much all of the pop culture references that were dropped. I can see where this might annoy some readers, especially if they preferred the original Japanese version. There were also several occasions where Serena breaks the fourth wall and thinks about the book the reader is reading. Once that might have been funny but this is done so many times in the novella that it isn’t really funny anymore.
I gave this book 4 stars, mostly for nostalgia reasons. This isn’t a literary masterpiece but I still found it funny over all any way. If you don’t take yourself or your reading too seriously, you might enjoy this book.
April 17, 2020
What an absolute time capsule
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August 13, 2024Way to break the fourth wall! Yay, Sailor Mercury. These books are bringing back allllll the memories. :)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews