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The Timeless Television of SAILOR MOON (Season 1)
🕑 Added 2023-08-17 21:34:54 +0000 UTCI cannot get over how much I love this show.
But it’s one of those things that happens sometimes with a beloved property that has been around for years. Heck, I first heard about the shows back in the mid 90s when a girl in my biology class was talking about how it's her favorite thing ever (and I was unfortunately right at the perfect Dumb Boy High School age to not pay the recommendation much mind). Then over time, you keep hearing that something is great. That it’s seminal, formative, and practically an ur-text for all that followed. More years and years go by and then you FINALLY end up watching it yourself and you go “oh, it’s THIS kind of great.” and you slap your forehead at your own incredulity for having missed it for so long.
I don’t know what I necessarily expected. Perhaps I was just too weaned on the boy centric import anime shows of my youth like Voltron, so perhaps I expected some kind of fun, but equally-one-dimensional version of that. What I did not expect was something so vividly funny, so slice of life, so earnest, and so exploring of fallibility and pertinent themes of growing up. Which culminates in something that actually seemed like a fundamental forerunner to 90’s staple shows that I adored. The ones that balanced overall plots with monster of the week affairs like Buffy and The X-Files. And Sailor Moon actually hits the same depths of those shows, too. Which is all part of the age-old lesson: when a lot of people adore a thing, there’s usually a pretty good reason.
I also had a little bit of a dilemma while watching this because of the length. Especially because I don’t consider the tight little fun episodes that tell a single story and expand on character as “filler” at all. But it’s just the simple fact that 1) I don’t have the time to do a mega episode length show because there’s just so much I want to write about in this world and 2) I can’t just mainline episodes and pay 70% attention the way some folks do with comfort shows because I’m always locked into anything I watch (especially if they’re subtitled). Thus, the 46 episode first season (!!!) was just too daunting to do in totality. So I actually bit the bullet and did something I’ve literally never done in my life, which is use one of those “you can skip these episodes” viewing guides that I know is apparently really popular with some of these long-running older shows. So let’s just consider it another anime right of passage! I did it! Also, it was a really good guide and we ended up watching like 4/7 of the season and I really feel like I was able to get most of what I needed. Because, once again, what I got was FANTASTIC.
It all starts with Usagi, who is probably one of my favorite protagonists ever? I specifically love that she reflects my single favorite thing about a lot of anime I’ve seen, in that the show is willing to make the protagonist a lovely little idiot (I genuinely mean this as a positive). Like Shoyo from Haikyuu and Soma from Food Wars, Usagi is a highly reactive, energetic, zero to 100 emotional swinging, fearful, gullible, forgetful, and even occasional dumbass, who is also filled with the wonderful confidence to call herself “the pretty guardian” and constantly get hearts in her eyes at handsome boys. This not only allows her to be incredibly funny (the funniest character on the show, bar none), it reflects OUR fallibility in turn Thus, our main character becomes an outlet FOR those very emotions and gives us the baseline touch stone for our full range of humanity. Moreover, it lends more even meaning to cathartic moments where she’s brave, resolute, and better yet, understanding of people’s feelings.
Like most TV of the 90s, you get used to the rhythms of the episode. The daily big bad appears to drain energy through some hot new teen fad. Tuxedo mask shows up briefly and throws a rose to help, but only a little. And of course, there’s the infamous magical girl transformation sequence (which is something even I’ve heard of before), which one could cynically see as a cost saving measure, when actually it’s a call to arms anthem that gets your blood pumping. Heck, its familiarity is part of the point. And the whole show reminds me that what I loved about TV was that it was designed so you COULD miss an episode sometimes because of things in your own life and it wouldn’t be the end of the world. And often these lighter episodes could be the most endearing things in the world, usually a bit of Topsy Turvy that would throw characters out of their comfort zones, turn up into down, but ultimately return to the status quo. Like, even, when the bad guys ultimately fail and are punished and cycle through, it’s all proof that everybody’s got a boss, am I right? But more importantly these forms of stasis are what also allows the show to have quieter kinds of growth. Like how over these 46 episodes we see how much this show goes from a solo story to an ensemble. Which means it’s time for…
The always-way-too-personal Sailor Team evaluation rankings!
Jupiter - I love my tall, tough, and sensitive queen! She’ll kick your ass and get bashful about it! I also love the very specific way she gets lovelorn and keeps going after guys who look like the ex who broke her heart and also is completely unafraid to LIFT SKATER MAN INTO THE AIR. Also, it’s hilarious that I watch it and I’m like “I love that that she’s clearly over six feet tall” and then I was looking at her wiki and it lists her at a very un-lady-like, um, *reads notes* “5’6”!?!?!??!?! Boy, that is a CHOICE.
Mars - Ohhhhhhhhhhh dear if you are into feisty mean girls, does this show have the character for you! Seriously, she goes so damn hard with the deeply confrontational Boston energy. Like there are some genuinely sad moments and she’s practically a “push through it, don’t feel anything, COWARD” like a damn sociopath. Sometimes I’m just like WHOA. But in that spirit, I love that her power is not throwing a tiara or something, but “incinerating enemies with a massive column of hellfire.” But so much of what makes her character work is her constant sparring with Usagi, which really makes the baseline conflict of the show’s slice of elements work so damn well.
Mercury - I feel like I never personally saw that Ami episode that really got me to ingratiate with her? (I might go back if there’s a good one I missed). Also, everyone has these mega weapons and even though she’s a water-type Pokemon, it’s not a cool tidal wave, but BUBBLE SPRAY, which sure does seem to leave her at a disadvantage! But like so many of the relationships, it’s how she fits in with the lot of them. And it’s hard being the shy, try hard wallflower who has to find your spaces to really exist. Also, I love that on wiki she is listed as having a 300 IQ, which in terms of lore, is 50 points higher than Brainiac… not that IQ is real… nor is Brainiac… nor is Sailor Mercury, but you get me, she should be like moving objects with her mind.
Venus - At first I was like, what’s the play here? But I think Venus mostly works in the narrative as a misdirect of the audience thinking she’ll be the moon princess, before revealing it is Usagi. But in terms of the overall relationship dynamics, I think it helps Usagi to have a fellow idiot in arms who can exacerbate her tendencies (the opening of the figure skating episode is a great example of this). But in the end, her backstory is shockingly adult. Like, it’s basically something out of a John Le Carre novel and I love the way Usagi comes to recognize the depth of what she’s been through. But mostly I’m curious what more of her we will get from Venus in the future.
But whether it’s these relationships, the tropes, or the weekly expectations, in establishing the set dynamics it makes it even more meaningful when the show breaks the mold. Sometimes it’s little things, like how bad Usagi is bad at fighting at first before she slowly gets her footing. Then comes the big lore and events of the Moon Kingdom and their “past lives” romance. Which is a trope I normally don’t like because it creates a sense of inescapable fatalism between two characters, when we as audience don’t want things to feel like forgone conclusions, but to feel the tension and also believe in the power of making such a choice. But there’s something to the way that Sailor Moon uses that fatalism as a focal tension point. Specifically in how it instantly plays with the Buffy / Angel device of Tuxedo Mask turning evil the second they really connect and understand their fates. Even if the logic gets wishy washy at times, the emotional clarity of it is so on point (near the finale, at one point I said out loud, “Landon I regret to inform you this is VERY good”). From there, the arcs crest and move, ending in a surprising amount of sacrifice where Usagi gets to lament how much they’re all just girls who haven’t gotten to live their lives yet and kiss the boys they like, which sounds heteronormative as hell, but it’s the 90s (and the show constantly allows for such wonderful queer projections, anyway). It’s just the metaphor for longing and wanting to grow up. Even the ensuing “reincarnation with no memory” is a trope that I normally dislike, but the show uses it in a way that shows the arc of where they started and how far they have come. For once she dreamed of a boy who would come to rescue her and in the end she became the one to truly rescue him.
Sailor Moon exists as testament to every ounce of its reputation. Beautifully realized between its portrait of everyday normalcy and the Heavy Metal Brand Sorcery undertones, all with a sense of design that is at once ornate, scratchy, and mostly just fun as hell. It’s amazing how vital it all seems now. Especially when it’s so easy to look at the surface or rhythm of the thing and figure that it has “aged,” but really it’s just proof pudding that we’ve forgotten the lessons and joys from that era of television. Chiefly, the understanding that “filler” can be, you know, filling in such a beautiful and meaningful way. Because it’s the kind of show that lets you simply spend time every week with a group you love. You don’t need to sllllloooowy tell the serialized tale of a world-breaking event. You can have fun little adventures. All part of a viewer's way of always visiting your little found family, a place where you laugh out loud four to five times an episode (like I did). Because the real delights in that kind of storytelling are not indicative of yesteryear…
They are a connection to that which is timeless.
<3HULK
Comments
Relatable is such a huuuuuge part of it.
Kyle Labriola
I'm in a similar boat to you Hulk where I mostly knew SM through cultural osmosis for years and didn't really sit down and start watching episodes until the pandemic. Truly great how well it holds up, ESPECIALLY the mundane slice-of-life comedy stuff. I kept seeing GIFs of just really lovingly rendered outfits, or jewelry, or food, or technology, all very 90s, and was so glad to see that that really is such a big part of the show. Plus extremely comical animations of the characters whining, crying, complaining, eating snacks, etc. etc. it's such a treat and so relatable.
Laurianne Uy
Baby me watched this show and made my third eye open or something 'cause every other animated show airing at the time had girl characters w/ their sh*t together and were trapped in that "likeable" cage. So I really appreciated seeing lazy, gremlin, fallible Usagi (even though I related to Ami/Mercury the most) because she just read as more dimensional and realistic. It was a fun early anime show that introduced me to a lot of No Big Deal it's Anime things like the fact that Ami's hair was blue but she didn't strike me as the type to dye her hair so wait, it's just naturally blue isn't it? XD Fun write up and hoo boy, Utena's gonna be a wild ride. :D
"Ryou Hirohashi voices the worst My Hero Academia character" i lol'd so hard at this hahahaha
Watching those first few seasons live was, like, event television. Just riveting stuff.
I haven't seen that much of Sailor Moon myself -- just episode 1, the Sailor Moon R movie (quite good), and the first season of the inferior 2014 remake Sailor Moon Crystal. But it's dear to my heart, for a specific reason. Of all my online hangouts ever, I've probably spent the most total time on the RPGnet forums, even though I've never really played tabletop RPGs. Why'd I even make an account, then? Well, in the Other Media forum, people sometimes do "In Which I Watch" (or "Where I Watch") threads for various media, and in 2010, a friend told me about a really fun thread series someone had been doing there for several months, covering Sailor Moon. Each episode got its own semi-parody script, with occasional sketch comics recapping larger chunks of the show -- it sort of developed into its own continuity, with fun details like Naru's mother secretly being Queen Beryl. The guy who did the series never finished the whole anime, but if you're interested in what's there (going partway through season 4), the index I used to maintain for it is still up: http://www.shayguy.com/shadowjack.html Oh, by the way, since it doesn't look like anyone told you yet -- Venus is an import from another series! Naoko Takeuchi wrote and drew the manga Codename: Sailor V as a solo superhero series before reworking it into a sort of sentai thing, so that's why Sailor V is already an established presence at the start. And now, of course, the VOICE ACTOR ROUNDUP! Where appropriate, I also included voices from the equivalent part of Sailor Moon Crystal, which only shared one VA with the original -- Usagi's. • Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon, Princess Serenity: Kotono Mitsuishi voices Misato Katsuragi in Evangelion, Gracia Hughes in FMA 2003, and Kagura Soma in Fruits Basket 2001. She also voiced Mai Shiranui in the '90s Fatal Fury anime, and she's the dub voice of the protagonist in Grey's Anatomy. Late in season 1, Mitsuishi got sick, so Kae Araki filled in for episodes 44-50; she also voices Hikari Yagami in Digimon Adventure. Some time after Mitsuishi got better, Araki started playing a recurring role of her own on Sailor Moon. • Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury: Aya Hisakawa voices Kinu Nakamozu in Food Wars and Yuki Soma in Fruits Basket 2001. --• Crystal!Ami: Hisako Kanemoto voices Erina Nakiri starting in season 3 of Food Wars, Motoko Iura in Horimiya, and Megumi Takahashi in A Place Further Than the Universe. • Rei Hino/Sailor Mars: Michie Tomizawa voices Doris Lang in Vampire Hunter D. Not much jumps out at me from her Wikipedia page, except maybe Jessica Lovejoy in the Japanese dub of The Simpsons. --• Crystal!Rei: Rina Satou voices Haruka Misono in Birdie Wing, Amane Ubuyashiki in Demon Slayer, and Makoto Niijima in Persona 5. • Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter, Jumeau, Cyrene: Emi Shinohara voices Sakagami in NANA, Charlotte Elbourne in Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, and actress Eri Ochiai in Perfect Blue, along with youma in SM episodes 6 and 18. Looks like she voiced Dorothy in one of the three dubs of The Wizard of Oz, too. --• Crystal!Makoto: Ami Koshimizu voices Amane in Birdie Wing, Sirius in My Hero Academia, Ryūko in Kill la Kill, and Heris Ardebit (Aina's scientist sister) in Promare. She's also been the voice of Mai Shiranui since 2010 or so. • Minako Aino/Sailor Venus: Nothing to report for Rica Fukami except that she also voices Motoki's girlfriend Reika. Crystal!Minako, however, is voiced by Shizuka Itou, who also voices Rindō Kobayashi in Food Wars! The Third Plate, Minami Toba in Laid-Back Camp, Vicar Amelia in Bloodborne, Yotsuyu in FF14: Stormblood, Emma in Sekiro, and female Byleth in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. • Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Kamen, Prince Endymion: Tōru Furuya voices Reiya Amuro in Birdie Wing, a reference to what's PROBABLY his most iconic role as Amuro Ray, star of the original Gundam anime. (Probably. You could make a case for the star of Saint Seiya.) He also voices Sorao/Corey in Pokémon: The First Movie and Dr. Kosaku Tokita in Paprika, he voiced Mario a few times in the '80s and '90s, and he's dubbed Victor Laszlo, Jimmy Olsen, and Charlie Day's character from Pacific Rim. --• Crystal!Mamoru: Kenji Nojima voices Seung Gil Lee in Yuri on Ice, Slicer in FMA: Brotherhood ep8, Shinsuke Kita in Haikyu!!, and Kanroji's father in Demon Slayer. Game roles include Wander in Shadow of the Colossus. Also he dubbed Wallace in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. • Luna: Keiko Han has some pretty famous roles in Gundam and Saint Seiya, but I think this is the first time you've heard her. She's dubbed both Ilsa Lund and Carrie White, I see. (Her daughter Megumi Han is a popular VA too, but you haven't heard her in anime yet either.) --• Crystal!Luna: Ryou Hirohashi voices the worst My Hero Academia character and Miles "Tails" Prower. • Artemis: Yasuhiro Takato voices Takeda in Nana and Principal Nezu in My Hero Academia. Dub roles include Hurley in Lost. • Queen Serenity: Mika Doi voices Naoko Akagi in Evangelion, Ketto's mother in Kiki's Delivery Service, and Arisa in Cowboy Bebop ep10. She's also voiced Daisy Duck, Alice from Alice in Wonderland… dubbed a bunch of Julia Roberts roles, Maude Lebowski, Catelyn Stark, and Marion Ravenwood. Random fact, both she and Emi Shinohara have voiced April O'Neil, in two different dubs of the '87 TMNT cartoon. --• Crystal!Serenity: Mami Koyama voices voices Kei in Akira, Swan in Belle, Pinako Rockbell in FMA: Brotherhood, and Adult Chiyoko in Millennium Actress. Dub roles… how about Elaine in Seinfeld, Alotta Fagina in Austin Powers, Gwen in Galaxy Quest, and Pamela Landy in the Bourne movies? For the Shitennou (the name's a Buddhist thing, and fun fact, it's also shared by Pokemon's Elite Four in Japanese), I have an awkward mix of '90s and Crystal data to share, so I'll deviate from my normal format for a bit. • 90s!Jadeite: Masaya Onosaka voices the cameraman in Millennium Actress and some minor characters in Princess Jellyfish, Nana, and Kill la Kill. Most American fans know him as the lead in Trigun. • Crystal!Nephrite: Kousuke Toriumi voices Kiyoomi Sakusa in Haikyu!!, Gyokko in Demon Slayer, Zenos Yae Galvus in Final Fantasy XIV, and Little Mac in the Super Smash Bros. games. #38 on ANN's ranking. • Crystal!Zoisite: Masaya Matsukaze voices Hiromi Sena in the training camp arc of Food Wars • 90s!Kunzite: The late Kazuyuki Sogabe (1948-2006) voices Rei Ginsei in Vampire Hunter D and Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid. Dub roles include Ringo in the old Beatles cartoon and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. • Crystal!Kunzite: Eiji Takemoto voices Kozo Kanamori in Demon Slayer and Shingo Andō in Food Wars. Some friends and family, all the Crystal versions: • Naru Ōsaka: Satomi Satou voices Saki Hanajima in Fruits Basket 2019. • Gurio Umino: Daiki Yamashita voices Deku in My Hero Academia, Mitsuru Soutsuda in Food Wars, Shū Iura in Horimiya, and Yushiro in Demon Slayer. • Reika Nishimura: Mai Nakahara voices Kinue Jingūji in Birdie Wing; she was everywhere in the mid-2000s to early 2010s. (As mentioned above, her original incarnation shares a VA with Minako -- Rica Fukami.) • Ikuko Tsukino: Yuko Mizutani voices Sora (and Taichi's mother) in Digimon Adventure. Wikipedia says she was also the official voice of Minnie Mouse from 1991 until her death in 2016, after which Aya Endo took over. (See my Kids on the Slope notes for some of Endo's roles.) Other dub roles of Mizutani's include Buffy Summers, a couple Meg Ryan roles, and Halle Berry's character in The Last Boy Scout. And an assortment of bit parts: • Yuusuke Amade (ep6): Norio Wakamoto voices Vicious in Cowboy Bebop, President Kanemoto in Nana ep42, Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars movies, M. Bison in Street Fighter, and Dracula in Castlevania. • Mikan Shiratori (ep7): Mika Kanai voices Misato Uehara in Nana and Leila's granddaughter in Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Was married to Koichi Yamadera for a while. • Mika Kayama (ep18 only): Ayako Shiraishi was the first voice of Nurse Joy in Pokémon, until her retirement from voice acting in 2002. • Sakiko (ep20) and Yumemi Yumeno: Yuriko Fuchizaki voices Kaori in Akira, Ketto in Kiki's Delivery Service, and Wendy in Peter Pan. Also a Soma in Fruits Basket 2001 I don't think you ever got to? • Castor (ep21): Akiko Hiramatsu voices Natsuko Komatsu in Nana and dubs Tai in Clueless. • Priest/Boxy (ep26): Hideyuki Umezu voices Shigenoshin Kōda in Food Wars and Barry the Chopper (in his armor) in FMA: Brotherhood. Dub roles include John Munch, Splinter TMNT, Zazu in The Lion King, and Marek Stefanski in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. By the way, a question if you've read this far -- do you have any personal favorites by now, among all the VAs you've come to know?
Amelia N
My version of "it was kinda before my time but I'm watching now and it's as good as everyone said" is ER. Just great television storytelling
