No successful anime series is complete without OAVs, and Black Dream Hole is one of the last OAVs starring Sailor Moon and the rest of her Sailor Scouts. Like most OAVs, Black Dream Hole is largely incomprehenible to non-fans of the series, and the events which occur in the OAV stand outside the TV series' continuity. This is a problem. While the earliest episodes of Sailor Moon were relatively easy for a newcomer to understand, later installments added characters and situations that were difficult for newcomers to comprehend. Chibi-moon (known in the dubbed version as Reeny) is the future daughter of Serena (the schoolgirl superheroine Sailor Moon) and Darien (the mysterious hero Tuxedo Mask) who has traveled back in time and lives with her mother, who in the present is still a teenager. Got that? If you don't, you'll understand why it's so hard for a nonfan to understand much of Black Dream Hole.
By the time Black Dream Hole was created, Sailor Moon had been around for a while and was running out of creative steam. The creators of Black Dream Hole, perhaps to overcompensate, tossed several truly bizarre ideas into the film. The plot revolves around androgynous alien Pied Pipers who hypnotise sleeping children with their music. The brainwashed kids are then herded aboard giant spacecraft which resemble Day Glo-painted snails, taken to a space station that resembles a roulette wheel, and placed in coffin-like containers to drain their energy. When the Sailor Scouts fight against the alien Pipers, the aliens turn blue gumball-like candies into larger gumballs which sprout demented-looking doll heads and limbs and fly around attacking everything in sight. There's also a wacky sequence in which the Scouts are turned back into little girls inside an illusory Gingerbread House. The cumulative effect of all this is Sailor Moon Gone Psychedelic.
Yet, before you can say "H.R. Pufinstuff," we're back in the standard stereotypical Sailor Moon plot that is so familiar from the TV series. This plot might actually be more enjoyable if you've never seen the TV show, so I won't spoil it for anyone.
Is the video worth renting? It's hard to say. On the one hand, I have a weak spot for the Sailor Moon series and can find something nice to say about almost everything Moon-related. On the other hand, Black Dream Hole is undeniably odd, and unlikely to win any new converts to the Sailor Moon series. If you're already a fan, you're going to see this movie anyway, and if you aren't a fan you'd probably choose a different film instead.
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