Comments FeedMore than 15 years after its initial debut in Japan, and just about 10 years since its debut in America, the Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon manga is making a comeback, with a brand new edition in English from Kodansha, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon.
Of course there are many fans that are thrilled by this – I count myself among them. For those of us who love this series, no explanation, no reasons, no critical analysis need be applied to the series. We love it, full stop.
However, the refrain I’m hearing over and over from those people who did not catch the wave the first time around, is “I don’t “get” it. What’s the big deal?”
First of all, let me disabuse you of the notion that there is a Big DealTM about Sailor Moon. There isn’t. If you don’t like it, don’t “get” it, can’t understand what we’re seeing, you’re not missing anything critical. Let’s be honest here – if you think Usagi is annoying, and don’t like the premise, the clothes, the romance…there’s nothing I can say to change your opinion. You don’t like Sailor Moon. Own it. I don’t like Dragonball Z and nothing any one of the zillions of fans is ever going to say will change my opinion.
So…what is the big deal about Sailor Moon? Let me tell you my story.
I used to collect American comics. I still have long boxes full of Avengers, Defenders and Invaders. But honestly, by the late 80s my interest was waning. Janet hadn’t killed her asshole husband Hank yet and the Valkyrie still wasn’t lesbian, even though she obviously was. There were fewer and fewer good female characters. When Storm joined the Avengers, and the Legion of Superheroes couldn’t tell that Quisling was the traitor among them, I knew I was done. Although I stopped collecting, I didn’t get all anti-comics. I just left comics and stopped filling the longboxes. I kind of missed the stories, but not enough to go back. Indie comics were too full of themselves (and had no women either) so I just…stopped.
In the late 1990s, anime and manga were starting to become popular here in the US. Cartoon Network used power anime series Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon to spearhead an afternoon anime block. It broke all records for animation in America.
I knew of it, of course. By then I was already making tentative steps into derivative fan work, with some fanfic of Xena: Warrior Princess and, for the first time in many years, found my interest in comics returning…only this time, it was all about manga. Friends came to the house with anime; we watched popular series like Ranma 1/2 and Tenchi Muyo and it was all laughs and fun and games.
So when my wife was home unemployed, and she started watching this series on TV called Sailor Moon, I wasn’t all that surprised that we liked it. I’ve told this story many times, that the first episode I watched was titled in English “Cruise Blues” and when Amy asked Ray if she noticed that they were the only ones on the ship without boyfriends and Ray replied that they didn’t need boys to have fun, I turned to my wife and said, “We are watching two different cartoons. You are watching the pre-pubescent little girl cartoon and I am watching the one with tremendous lesbian subtext.” And so, we were both hooked.
I started to research this Sailor Moon and instantly encountered the fact that two of the Sailor Senshi were a lesbian couple (and this outside of the not subtle lesbian subtext between Usagi and Rei, Minako and Makoto, later Ami and Makoto, and in the manga Minako and Usagi and Rei and Minako. It was actually kind of hard to avoid it, unless you worked hard at it.) And then there was the obvious, incestuous triangle of Usagi, Mamoru and Chibi-Usa. And that was only in the first two series!
Once I learned about the third season, the appearance of the “Outer Senshi” and the fact that they had what was as close to an out lesbian couple as I’d ever see in anime (this was back in the late 90s, remember,) I dug around until I found fansubs of the series. Fansubs weren’t easy back then. You mailed a blank VHS plus postage to some guy somewhere and he sent you back a VHS with a nth generation copy with subtitles manually entered and timed. If you were lucky, the guy was making copies from an LCD.
That’s how I discovered Sailor Moon Super or Sailor Moon S, as most people call it. And how I discovered Sailors Uranus and Neptune, who are indeed a fabulous lesbian couple.
As my wife and I watched Sailor Moon S in Japanese, I realized I could parse some of the linguistic patterns and since I really, really wanted to read the manga for this series (it was still years before Tokyopop would consider putting it out) I started to learn Japanese…just to be able to read Sailor Moon.
The manga was pretty sketchily drawn. Takeuchi’s feet and hands are not worthy of praise. But her characters are beautiful. Yes, they all have the same face…there’s darn few manga artists that don’t do a find and replace face. That’s exactly why hair styles and colors are so strange in shoujo and shounen manga – because otherwise all the characters have the same features. And yet, those lines are lovely, feminine and appealing. Takeuchi wasn’t afraid to dress her characters up, or play a little with their personalities.
The plot is…childish. A slightly-below average middle schooler is the leader of a group of “Guardians” from an ancient Moon Kingdom? Well, gosh that makes tons of sense, doesn’t it? I have two words for you – Dragonball Z. The plot doesn’t have to be sensible, any more than Cinderella’s fairy godmother giving her a glass slipper does. Sailor Moon is childish because it’s written for children. For girl children who want to be Princesses who fight for love and justice and who get the guy, but get to rule the Queendom, rather than adorn the King’s arm. Not for nothing is Queen Serenity accompanied by Prince Endymion. But all the characters were, at heart, girls that any girl might identify with. Girls who are a little – or a lot – different. Each Senshi reflects an archetype, a zodiac. Each Senshi reflects us.
So what is the big deal?
It was a series for girls, when little to no series took girls seriously. Like Xena, Usagi fought for good. Like Xena, Usagi gathered around her allies and enemies. Like Xena, Usagi’s allies become more than just friends. Unlike Xena, Usagi was just a regular girl. Perhaps it was the zeitgeist but for me, having Xena and Gabriel on TV paved the way for me to love cool, attractive Junior Racer Haruka and genius violinist Michiru. The anime fed into the manga, which fed back into the anime. Character qualities and experiences spilling from one into the other and back created a body of canon, fed by the deep well of fanon in the form of fan art and fanfic (many dozens of which I wrote and still ocassionally write) that created the spring with which our fandom was irrigated.
I don’t know if anyone coming to Sailor Moon now can feel that, but I do know it’s been on the New York Times Best Seller list since Volume 1 was released. I’m not surprised at all. Usagi is still annoying yet lovable, Ami is still admirable and sweet. Makoto is strong, yet feminine. Minako, when she arrives will be goofy, but a staunch leader. Setsuna will be mature and mysterious, Chibi-Usa will be 10x annoying, but sympathetic, Haruka and Michiru will be talented, cool, and deeply, obviously in love. And last, but almost never least, Hotaru will be pitiable and amazing.
What’s the big deal about Sailor Moon?
You tell me.
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25 Comments
I love that first image; psychedelic sugar rush.
This piece is interesting coming right after Nate’s. It seems that, like him, you’re saying that in part the point of the comic is the community it creates. The big deal about Sailor Moon is partially that it was so formative of shojo in the U.S. and of a female manga American readership.
Absolutely, and part of that was that the characters were so relatable (on purpose) so that there’s someone for everyone to care about.
There was a zeitgeist that Sailor Moon was part of – that’s absolutely unrevisitable. But the essential princess fairy tail with pretty, feminine, art remains.
I chose the poster art to illustrate this article because it embodies both zeitgeist and pretty art at once. I have the poster of the Senshi in tuxes over my computer in my office. I stare at it quite often, imagining that the essentials of each character are expressed through body language. Minako, hand insouciantly in her pocket, leaning towards a confident Usagi. Haruka’s hand draped over Setsuna’s shoulder, Rei and Ami shoulder to shoulder….
In my head these pictures tell far more stories than the manga could capture. That is why we love Sailor Moon, really…the stories we tell ourselves about it.
I suspect too that the lesbian subtext you responded to is a part of the appeal as well. Or at least, the portrayal of strong, affectionate female friendships seem to often be very attractive to young girls. The old WW comics had that as well — not to mention even more explicit (and very conscious) lesbian subtext….
That it could be seen as lesbian was part of the appeal for the boys, certainly. Strong female friendships would appeal to the girls – friends now, with the promise of heterosexual romance later, when we’re a bit more grownup.
PreCure, a popular anime franchise with accompanying manga in Nakayoshi magazine uses the same formula, very successfully, to this very day. There’s less emphasis on future romance, and more on family relationships, as the target audience is younger than Sailor Moon’s audience.
I don’t know about the lesbian parts appealing to boys. Most boys probably wouldn’t pick up a Sailor Moon manga (maybe they do in the U.S.?). I think they might get more exposure through the cartoons/anime. My entire diet of “magical princess” stories as a kid was through cartoons. And aren’t the cartoons completely sanitized as far as gay-lesbian issues are concerned? I’ve only seen a few episodes. I always figured the lesbian parts appealed mainly to the ladies just like Takarazuka.
Oh, no, definitely the lesbian part appealed to the boys. They wrote/drew metric tons of fanfic/doujinshi with lesbian pileups.
Because the manga and the anime fed back and forth from/to one another, boys watching the anime bought the manga – in Japan and the US. Sailor Moon was the exception to the rule that boys won’t engage with girls’ media. It broke records and barriers in Japan, then did the same here in the US. It paved the way for Saint Tail, another “girls” series with a dedicated male fanbase and ultimately was the foundation for the Nanoha franchise (which is incredibly successful in Japan, but less so here in the west), and other “magical girl” series that are really targeted towards anime-buying guys, like Madoka Magika.
These series could not have existed without the significant market cross-over power shown by Sailor Moon.
I think girls — even straight girls — respond to lesbian overtones, or romantic female friendships. That was Sharon Marcus’ argument about Victorian girls, and I think it continues to be the case. It’s true for adult women as well, I think, if the not-very-repressed lesbianism in fashion magazine spreads is any indication.
Well, that’s very interesting. I didn’t know that Sailor Moon was such a huge thing among boys in Japan and the US. And a large part of it because of the lesbians? Surely there must be more to it than that. Was its adventure format closer to the various shonen series?
Might explain why something like Candy Candy didn’t/doesn’t appeal as much. That’s one of the only other shojo series which boys in Asia seem to know something about (purely on anecdotal evidence; and maybe Nana). Obviously, I haven’t read most of Sailor Moon. I’m only observing from a distance.
I watched the anime and read the manga (from the old Mixx issues) and I don’t recall picking up on any lesbian overtones.
@Suat – I’m not saying that the lesbian pairings are the only – or even the majority reason – for popularity among boys. I was only answering that yes, it was appealing to some boys. ^_^
The fighting format was a draw, cute girls with short skirts was a draw, there were any number of elements that made Sailor Moon mainstream-cracking where “pure” shoujo like Candy Candy might not.
@Noah – There is no doubt that the lesbian subtext appealed to straight women as well. These were the days when straight female American fans who enjoyed the subtext coined “shoujoai” to reflect a purer, less contaminated by ewww, lesbians, emotional love. They used that and “shounenai” to differentiate themselves from the perverts who liked Yuri and Yaoi.
This caused (and causes) no end of confusion to people who still insist there’s an age rating inherent in these terms. In fact, there is no such thing, the terms shoujoai and shouneai are used for pederasty in Japan and it’s all a fan wank. ^_^
@Derik – Interesting, because I and many other fans, can’t imagine how you didn’t!
I was just a little bit older than the target audience when Sailor Moon first aired in the U.S. in less than desirable time slots across the country. From my memory of my initial impressions, and the impressions of the other people who watched the show, there were several things to recommend it, including the adventure format, actual continuing story arcs within the more episodic framework, cool designs, and a willingness to break taboos (including gender-bending, deaths of the main characters, however temporary). Of course, the adaptation was a mess, but it served the needs of the anime-starved populace that had been slowly groomed over the past decade by video game and other pop culture imports.
I’m sure the hints of lesbianism, which I was certainly aware of, was icing to more than a few viewers.
I remember some friends saw an anime called Project Ako which revolved around three girls in a more or less romantic triangle. My friends were astonished by the seemingly up-front lesbianism of the story. I later read something (source: something I read somewhere) that asserted that in Japan it’s a truism that girls’ relationships rehearse aspects of romance in much the way that girls’ interest in horses does. If this is so, it’d be interesting to learn more about where innocent pseudo-romance shades into lesbian romance in Japanese narratives.
One of the main directors of the SM anime went on to oversee Revolutionary Girl Utena, which has a lot in common with SM but pushes the complex erotics in a less kid-friendly fashion.
The big deal about Sailor Moon is, for me, “Star Gentle Uterus.”
This writeup is awesome! I had a huge crush on Sailor Jupiter, at the time. I also really wanted to be best friends with Sailor Mercury and Sailor Mars, and have a cool older couple like Sailor Uranus and Sailor Venus looking out for me.
Cool older couple like Sailor Uranus and Sailor NEPTUNE! I am a moonie, I swear.
I notice a lot of transgendered people found Sailor Moon a safe outlet for their inner girl that they couldn’t express at that point in life… that was the case for me.
Funny though that Zoicite was one of my first anime crushes (along with Minako) when I thought the character was female… that itself is pretty ironic if you think of (maybe she came across as trans to me because of the slight masculinity of the character).
Anyway, despite the fact that I still collect american comics, Sailor Moon is one of the series that had the biggest impact on me growing up.
Minako is one of a few characters that I personally identify with, and the girls I fall for are often like Rei, Usagi or Haruka in some fashion.
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[...] story or exposure, a definitely entry to go read about why this is such a huge impact is Erica’s article. Sailor Moon has become for me an action heroine that in spite of how her personality is, and of [...]
i love sailor mercury also their friends planet warriors i hope that this movie will come true :D
I haven’t watched Sailor Moon in a long time since the late 90s when I was 8 yrs. old. I remember during weekdays, I wake up at about 6 in the morning to get ready for school (I was in elementary school back then). And then I turn on the television in my room (of course my brother’s as well) watching “Garfield & Friends” at 5:30 a.m., then “Dragon Ball Z” at 6:00 a.m., then after that…”Sailor Moon” at 6:30 a.m. on the WB network. Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon was very great show that I watched back in the day. I do remember the main characters such as: Serena (Sailor Moon), Rei (Sailor Mars), Ami (Sailor Mercury), Lita (Sailor Jupiter), Aino Minako (Sailor Venus), Tuxedo Mask (Darien), Luna (black cat), and Artemis (white cat). But I hardly can’t remember the villains in that series. I only watch a couple of episodes, but I didn’t finish watching the series and/or I don’t know what happen to it. And above of all else…I am a male. That has nothing to do about watching a girls anime show. I heard that my brother watch Sailor Moon, even a lot of boys watch Sailor Moon back then when they was little (I was little as well.) So…let ask you this. Does Sailor Moon attracted for girls only or does Sailor Moon attracted for everybody (Kids) just like Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, and other anime shows? Actually if you watch Dragon Ball Z, you tell that everybody (both male and female) watch the show back then. Even boys can watch Cartoon Network’s “The Powerpuff Girls”. So I don’t think that “Sailor Moon” (anime series) is attracted not just the girls…but for the boys as well (except dolls. Boys don’t play dolls).
I really can’t believe that there is another sailor warriors,I only know there’s only five sailor warriors ( sailor moon, sailor mercury, sailor mars, sailor jupiter, and sailor venus ). so, the anime series in U.S. is very diffirent in the anime series in Japan. I don’t know that there’s an lesbian in the group..
I love Princess Serenity… so much
Yelo – The other Senshi do definitely exist in the Japanese version – the American version didn’t change that. And the creator herself has said that Sailors Uranus and Neptune are meant to be seen as a couple. All the art you see in this article is official Japanese art, by the creator.
Well, there are some recognizable about Ronin Warriors and Sailor Moon. We got teenage boys in armor and we got teenage girls in sailor suits. Both teams fight against evil.