Tag Archives: Sailor Moon

A Trans Man on What Sailor Moon Means to Him

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A writer named Alexander left this comment on Erica Friedman’s post about Sailor Moon. I thought I’d reprint it here.

Sailor Moon, for me, really gave me the foundation to learn how to be strong as I got older. As a transgender male, it was extremely difficult to come to terms with who I was and stop trying to force myself into believing that my body made me a girl despite the sinking feeling that it was all wrong, and I doubt I ever would have come to accept myself as quickly as I did (though it did take years), had I not had the values of believing in oneself, staying strong, and speaking out for what was right embedded in my heart by this beloved series, a series who also offered a collection of strong, brave mentors and role models. All of the characters breaking through the typical gender binaries really encouraged me in a time I couldn’t find it in myself to accept who I was or what I was going through. Sailor Moon also helped me significantly in dealing with others’ perception of me due to the fact that my boyfriend of two years (and best friend of six) are both transgender males and ridiculed for it on both sides(those who think we’re in a lesbian relationship, those who realize we’re both guys in a relationship.) Characters like Uranus (who, as a transman, I looked up to enormously growing up and felt my heart glow for when Neptune said in a scene in the manga that Uranus shared both male and female traits) and Neptune who, though oppressed by censorship and paranoid parental figures, loved so fearlessly and beautifully that it was impossible not to see its depth, characters like FishEye, who, though he or she was often rejected or taunted, continued to dream and aspire and express them self, characters like the Starlights, who broke all rules in regards gender, particularly during the anime (though manga Seiya will always be dear to my heart)… They were all characters who reflected aspects of who I was that I would never be able to accept in myself, but who allowed me to accept and even respect through their brilliance and inspiration. There we also the others. Hotaru, who, though abused, mistreated, and abandoned by so many for her differences, continued to strive to be a good person and to love. Minako, the leader who struggled to live up to the pedestal she had been placed on by her duty to her princess and friends. Rei, whose fierce personality taught me that it was alright to actually speak up for yourself. Makoto, who was often misjudged and seen as a bad person due to childish rumors and misunderstandings, and yet never fell into the persona others had attached to her. Ami, whose quiet demeanor often left her to toil with her emotions and insecurities alone, and yet made her mature. Setsuna, who saw the possibility of doom ever-present on the horizon, and yet continued onward with hope for a better tomorrow. Chibiusa, whose innocence never faltered, and whose love was unconditional and everlasting, even when bittersweet. The Amazon Quartet, whose wish to hold on to their childhood and fear for what dangers becoming an adult held for them led them into darkness in the anime, and finally, Usagi, whose love was never severed by hate or rage, who fought for all, even if it meant her own suffering or even death, whose experiences made her even warmer rather than bitter, who held no bias in her heart even for those who had wronged her, and who taught me that being mature didn’t mean letting go of your inner child. Honestly, I can go on and on, but I know I’m talking too much. My point is that I truly do believe that Sailor Moon played a significant role in making me who I am today, and without it, I’d probably be pretty lost. I love Sailor Moon. I am a transguy, and I am not afraid nor ashamed to proclaim that.

 

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What’s the Big Deal About Sailor Moon?

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More 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.

*Cough* — Manga — *Cough*

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Valerie D’Orazio whines that nobody buys female super-hero comics.

The next step for women in mainstream comics is to translate our hopes and dreams and talents and superheroines we love into comic book sales. Past the idealism, past the blog posts, past everything — we need to sell these books. Nobody fucks with JK Rowling, and there’s a good reason for that.

Of course, D’Orazio is talking about stuff like Wonder Woman and Hellcat (how many of you bought the Hellcat mini-series? she asks plaintively.)

Here’s a tip or two for those wondering about super-hero comics:

1. Supporting titles as an act of socio-political charity may get you an unread copy or two of Hellcat, but it’s not going to prevent the series from getting cancelled.
2. There are a number of extremely successful female super-hero comics. They just aren’t put out by Marvel and DC.

Number 2 is probably going to leave the fangirls scratching their heads. Where are these successful super-hero titles with woman they ask? Why haven’t I seen them?

Well, the titles I’m thinking of are things like Buffy, and Sailor Moon, and Cardcaptor Sakura. Stuff that doesn’t look like super-hero comics; that comes out of a manga genre or crosses over with horror/goth. These titles have all the hallmarks of super-herodom — someone with extraordinary powers runs around saving people. But they forswear the kind of tights/double-identity/clubhouse continuity crap that is there to appeal to 25-35 year old guys.

In other words — you want super-hero comics for women? Then don’t go begging to the fans to support you. Instead, write fucking super-hero comics for women. Lots of women. Not just the very small number of women who care about the super-hero-genre-as-sold-through-the-direct-market. Because you know what? There aren’t enough of those women to support a title. There’s never going to be enough of those women to support a title. It’s just not going to happen. Especially in a fucking recession.

And, let me add, it’s not clear why it should happen. There’s lots and lots of product out there. Why do women need to run around trying to appreciate a genre that has never, and will never put them center stage as consumers? The fun bits of super-heroes for women can be picked out and put in other contexts — and, indeed, they have been. So why deal with the rest?

Now if you want to blame mainstream comics for promoting an insular, unimaginative approach to their product and marketing — hey, I hear you. But blaming women (or anybody) for not buying this crap? Color me unimpressed.

Update: Edited to correct spelling of D’Orazio’s name. Sorry about that Valerie!

Update the second: Well, to no one’s surprise, I didn’t actually read all the back links before I posted…but now I have (sort of.) Josh Tyler started things off with a kind men are from mars, women are from venus argument about why women don’t like super-heroes; then Heidi has a round-up of various folks taking him to task because women do too like super-heroes and he’s sexist.

I think Josh is right that women and men have different genre interests. I think his accusers are probably right that the way he parses those genre distinctions (women like romance; men like things that blow up) is simplistic enough to verge on lad mag territory (which is to say, it’s kind of sexist.)

Josh’s argument is in the context of movies; he’s arguing there aren’t many super-hero movies and there never will be, and that’s fine. But, of course, and again. there are heaps of female super-hero movies. Lara Croft, Buffy, Underworld (or whatever the hell that’s called), the Terminator, Alien — just lots of tough women onscreen performing super stunts in the interest of saving people. Oh, right…and Kill Bill and The Matrix has that too…and Charlie’s Angels, and…well, the list goes on. A lot of these are aimed at guys, obviously, but it’s hard to imagine they don’t have a bigger female audience percentage-wise than DC and Marvel do in general. Again, it’s not that women don’t like super-heroes; it’s that, within the limits of corporate fan fic, the aging stable of female characters owned by the big two just isn’t all that appealing to a broad audience. I mean, could you take Wonder Woman, give her a gun and a vampire boyfriend and…I don’t know, a horse, a cool car, anything except that fucking stupid invisible plane and the weird-ass lasso — and have her suddenly be popular? Maybe. But once you’ve done that, why call her Wonder Woman?