The Accidental Otaku (#3 06142010)
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (1992 - 1996)
Creator - Naoko Takeuchi
Plot : From the ANN Encyclopedia"One day, Usagi Tsukino, clumsy 2nd-year middle school student (8th grader), stumbles upon a talking cat named Luna. Luna tells her that she is destined to be Sailor Moon, "champion of love and justice", and she must search for the fabled Moon Princess. Usagi finds friends that turn out to be destined senshi as well, and together they fight to save the world from the certain doom brought upon by the Dark Kingdom (Queen Beryl, the generals, Metallia)."
Opinion : Just out of high school, back in 1993-1994, I fuond out about the anime club at Ohio State. Called Animate!, it was held every other Friday during the school year. The showings themselves were free, but you could pay a small membership fee and could take out anime from their library, not only actual anime VHS tapes, but soundtracks on cassette tape as well. It was the early 90's, gimme a break. This was when I again fell in love with anime. Finding whole new shows, such as Tenchi Muyo!, Maison Ikkoku, and GS Mikami, listening to great new (at least to me) music from series such as The Bubblegum Crisis and the original Vampire Princess Miyu series? It was heavenly.
Animate! published, for the school year of 1994 (I believe), a newsletter detailing their schedule and not only each of the anime they planned to show, but several that might be previewed. One blurb near the back was about a show called "Sailor Moon". They stated that it would, and I paraphrase here, "...the show that would change the face of anime as we know it.". Later that year, they showed about half of an untranslated episode. I didn't see, at that time, what the fuss was about. Once, many years later, I was able to discern a little of what caused that statement, though, knowing what I know of the people that would have made those statements, I'm probably reading too much into it. Nevertheless...
Anime never stagnates. There are times, however, where one series, one movie, one show or one manga can take the whole of anime in an entirely different direction. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon falls into that category. Certainly, there were female manga-ka before Naoko Takeuchi. Rumiko Takahashi comes to mind as a woman that many female manga-ka point to as a major influence. And there were shows that could be categorized as shoujo, even htis, but the vast majority were shonen. Aimed at, and marketed, for boys. Even for Takahashi, her manga and anime were, for the most part (yes, even Maison Ikkoku), were aimed at a male audience. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon was not. It was aimed at an entirely female market. I would add an overly cliche'd female market, but where would markets be without stereotype? Themes like teamwork, even with disparate, and especially because of disparate female attitudes (Makoto vs. Ami), using weapons and violence as the last resort, especially if the protagonist feels that a redemption is possible...and then there's the romance between Usagi and Mamoru. And, well, romance in general.
There are five seasons and 200 episodes. The seasons are labelled; Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon R, Sailor Moon S, Sailor Moon SuperS and Sailor Moon Stars. All of the seasons are very worth watching, except SuperS, which seems to be done for some reason I can't fathom. The SuperS movie sucked even larger objects. It wasn't good. And that is truly disappointing as the R and S movies are really quite good, not only in the quality of the animation, but the music and story as well. The final season, Stars, more than made up for the deficiencies of SuperS.
Whatever you do, steer clear of the DiC dubs. Words cannot express the sheer horror. They not only have horrible actors, but changed the names (thus losing several layers of meaning, puns and wordplay from Takeuchi) of the characters themselves. Female characters are suddenly men, ostentiablly since English speakers (specifically Americans) are sensitive to homosexuals...or something like that. Simply horrible! But, you know what? I think I would rather watch the dubs than 90% of American cartoons out there, but there are limits.
Character progression is another feature of many anime. While most long ruinning anime (anything generally over a season) have some progression, it's usually nto very subtle. Gaining a new weapon or technique or something similar is often used, as well as the death of a friend or mentor. Sailor Moon is, by degrees, more subtle. Even during the first season, we see characters doing things out of experience that weren't there at the beginning of the series. Again, the idea of character progression, while not new, is brought to another level in the series.
While I believe Animate!'s note on changing anime wasn't as lofty as bringing shoujo to it's prominence, perhaps one of them had a premonition on where the series might eventually lead.
Creator - Naoko Takeuchi
Plot : From the ANN Encyclopedia"One day, Usagi Tsukino, clumsy 2nd-year middle school student (8th grader), stumbles upon a talking cat named Luna. Luna tells her that she is destined to be Sailor Moon, "champion of love and justice", and she must search for the fabled Moon Princess. Usagi finds friends that turn out to be destined senshi as well, and together they fight to save the world from the certain doom brought upon by the Dark Kingdom (Queen Beryl, the generals, Metallia)."
Opinion : Just out of high school, back in 1993-1994, I fuond out about the anime club at Ohio State. Called Animate!, it was held every other Friday during the school year. The showings themselves were free, but you could pay a small membership fee and could take out anime from their library, not only actual anime VHS tapes, but soundtracks on cassette tape as well. It was the early 90's, gimme a break. This was when I again fell in love with anime. Finding whole new shows, such as Tenchi Muyo!, Maison Ikkoku, and GS Mikami, listening to great new (at least to me) music from series such as The Bubblegum Crisis and the original Vampire Princess Miyu series? It was heavenly.
Animate! published, for the school year of 1994 (I believe), a newsletter detailing their schedule and not only each of the anime they planned to show, but several that might be previewed. One blurb near the back was about a show called "Sailor Moon". They stated that it would, and I paraphrase here, "...the show that would change the face of anime as we know it.". Later that year, they showed about half of an untranslated episode. I didn't see, at that time, what the fuss was about. Once, many years later, I was able to discern a little of what caused that statement, though, knowing what I know of the people that would have made those statements, I'm probably reading too much into it. Nevertheless...
Anime never stagnates. There are times, however, where one series, one movie, one show or one manga can take the whole of anime in an entirely different direction. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon falls into that category. Certainly, there were female manga-ka before Naoko Takeuchi. Rumiko Takahashi comes to mind as a woman that many female manga-ka point to as a major influence. And there were shows that could be categorized as shoujo, even htis, but the vast majority were shonen. Aimed at, and marketed, for boys. Even for Takahashi, her manga and anime were, for the most part (yes, even Maison Ikkoku), were aimed at a male audience. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon was not. It was aimed at an entirely female market. I would add an overly cliche'd female market, but where would markets be without stereotype? Themes like teamwork, even with disparate, and especially because of disparate female attitudes (Makoto vs. Ami), using weapons and violence as the last resort, especially if the protagonist feels that a redemption is possible...and then there's the romance between Usagi and Mamoru. And, well, romance in general.
There are five seasons and 200 episodes. The seasons are labelled; Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon R, Sailor Moon S, Sailor Moon SuperS and Sailor Moon Stars. All of the seasons are very worth watching, except SuperS, which seems to be done for some reason I can't fathom. The SuperS movie sucked even larger objects. It wasn't good. And that is truly disappointing as the R and S movies are really quite good, not only in the quality of the animation, but the music and story as well. The final season, Stars, more than made up for the deficiencies of SuperS.
Whatever you do, steer clear of the DiC dubs. Words cannot express the sheer horror. They not only have horrible actors, but changed the names (thus losing several layers of meaning, puns and wordplay from Takeuchi) of the characters themselves. Female characters are suddenly men, ostentiablly since English speakers (specifically Americans) are sensitive to homosexuals...or something like that. Simply horrible! But, you know what? I think I would rather watch the dubs than 90% of American cartoons out there, but there are limits.
Character progression is another feature of many anime. While most long ruinning anime (anything generally over a season) have some progression, it's usually nto very subtle. Gaining a new weapon or technique or something similar is often used, as well as the death of a friend or mentor. Sailor Moon is, by degrees, more subtle. Even during the first season, we see characters doing things out of experience that weren't there at the beginning of the series. Again, the idea of character progression, while not new, is brought to another level in the series.
While I believe Animate!'s note on changing anime wasn't as lofty as bringing shoujo to it's prominence, perhaps one of them had a premonition on where the series might eventually lead.