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shinneth · 5 months

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My souring sentiments on Sailor Moon's manga

It'll be a surprise to no one who knows me even remotely that Sailor Moon was my everything back in my childhood. From the age of 9, I was utterly obsessed with it.

That was just a couple of years shy of 30 years ago.

Since then, I've often revisited the series. I watched the entirety of the Viz dub of the classic anime; all 200 episodes.

And I loved it all the same, if not more so than before. Because now I have context for why exactly the anime was the way it was, including its gradual diversion from the manga source material. And I respect the hell out of the staff who poured their life into this work, while concurrently running with the manga and doing whatever it could to not completely outpace it in the narrative.

Are there a lot of fillers in the OG anime? Yes. Too many? Well, not so from a functional standpoint (this show had to run weekly for 5 years), but there are definitely some fillers you could skip and miss nothing in doing so.

But a story like Sailor Moon honestly needed some breathing room in order to properly flesh out the cast.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, the live-action reimagining of the show, was phenomenal back then (despite looking low-budget even by 2003 standards), and having re-watched the whole series recently, I can safely say PGSM more than holds up and deserves way more love and respect than it gets. It's THE perfect example of reimagining the story of Sailor Moon while still respecting its roots and maintaining the soul of the franchise.

Which is exactly why I couldn't stand Sailor Moon Crystal. We knew from the off that it was supposed to be completely faithful to the manga, but one look through @crystalvsmanga will show you Crystal took shitloads of "creative liberties", and the amount of changes I could dare to call "good"? I could count them on one hand.

The animation is low-hanging fruit, because everyone and their dog knows how godawful it was for the first two story arcs. But more than that, I actually loathed the general art design. Yukie Sakou's style DID NOT closely resemble Naoko Takeuchi's. People kept saying it, but I couldn't really see it. The eyes especially are a far cry from Takeuchi's style. And Sakou's style did NOT facilitate the OTT cartoony expressions that were definitely present in Takeuchi's manga; everyone looked so goddamn soulless, like overly-expensive porcelain dolls.

My biggest gripe with Crystal was the story, of course. While a great deal came from just being from the manga (which I'll get to in a bit), the changes they made went a long way to actively make the manga's story worse. My main takeaway from Crystal S1-2 is that it took itself waaaaay too seriously.

That being said, I did like Crystal's third season a lot better BECAUSE Chiaki Kon had way more competence and held a lot more respect for Sailor Moon. Like, my god, for once it felt like there was a soul in this show! It can actually take the piss every now and then!

Some silly things kinda broke my immersion (such as the Senshi just being able to fuckin' fly and Chibi-Moon in particular was literally sky-stepping), but most of that can be blamed on the source material it was adapting. While I was fine with Crystal3, I definitely didn't feel it was anywhere near as good as Sailor Moon S. Outside of Hotaru/Sailor Saturn having more of a presence, there wasn't really much in Crystal's take on Infinity that I liked better than S.

But most of that comes down to the fact that I liked S more than manga's Infinity arc to begin with.

Which is a good segue to talk about the manga proper.

I have not yet watched Eternal or Cosmos. the movies that adapted the last two manga arcs, but it'd be redundant since I know ahead of time what they're going to be about, and so far I haven't heard about any of them deviating from the source material, so it'd be moot to talk about them even if I had watched.

When I first got my hands on the manga, which was when I was around 12-13 and thus got the crappy MiXxZine translations, I was fine enough with it. Thought it was too fast-paced and didn't care for 99% of the villains being one-and-done jobbers, but I was also reading it with my impressions of the 90's anime characters still intact. I was reading the manga like an extension of the anime, rather than the other way around.

It wasn't until many years later when I grew older, when the manga was properly translated, when I acquired the wisdom my teenaged-ass self lacked, and learned to look at the manga as a completely separate entity that I started to see the cracks in the manga's narrative.

Further rereads have left me in something of a mindfuck, as I experienced the manga the proper way. And I realized:

The more I read the manga, the more I disliked it.

The manga is lauded for having an infinitely better depiction of Mamoru, as well as his ~Miracle Romance~ with Usagi.

Objectively, the manga definitely spends lots more time giving UsaMamo attention as a couple than any other aspect of the story...

I'd say they're also more developed as individuals in the manga too, but usually the beats, uh...

... let's say they usually ring hollow, when these two (and sometimes their daughter) are the only ones who consistently get shit done across the series. Hell, on the rare occasion that the Inner Senshi weren't rendered into street pizza, Neo Queen Serenity basically told them to fuck off and let her daughter, past self, and past hubby take on motherfucking DEATH PHANTOM/NEMESIS BY THEMSELVES.

It's likely because my first exposure to Sailor Moon was via the 90s anime, which had more of a focus on friendship and comradery between Usagi and her friends than it did her romance with Mamoru. I mean, romance was DEFINITELY a prominent thing even in that iteration of the story, but that wasn't where my interest lied. I was, am currently, and always will be more interested in Usagi's galpals than I'll ever be interested in her love life.

And, well, I'm sure this qualifies as a hot take, but...

This one moment with Usagi and Mamoru in the elevator (hell, their interaction across this entire episode was great) resonated with me far more than any ultra-romantic declarations of eternal devotion that Usagi and Mamoru kept regurgitating at each other in the manga.

Granted, the manga had a FEW moments early on where their dynamic was more playful, but they were pretty much confined to the early chapters and this element of their chemistry pretty much died not long after this.

Some say 90s anime Mamoru was far too mean-spirited in his teasing of Usagi. And I mean, sure, he was kind of a douche at times, but he usually got some karmic blowback from it (I remember one time he made Usagi cry without even really meaning to, and she cried so loud in public that randos nearby were giving Mamoru the evil-eye or a scolding). But honestly, after R, Mamoru kinda became a bland, generic love interest, just as he almost always was in the manga. The only difference was that anime Mamoru was never granted powers that were literally equal to Usagi's. The manga gave him a GOLDEN FUCKING CRYSTAL.

There was that infamous break-up arc in R that, yes, was shitty in concept and execution. But if I had anything positive to say about it, it at least shook up the status quo. It didn't make him immediately fall into the bland, generic love interest he would soon become. And it gave us some of the most emotionally-charged Usagi moments in the entire anime.

Conversely, in the manga, we had THIS shit for our UsaMamo "drama":

(the former incident with Usagi literally accusing her boyfriend of falling in love with a kid, by the way, happened while MOST OF HER FRIENDS WERE KIDNAPPED BY THE ENEMY AND COULD'VE BEEN DEAD FOR ALL SHE KNEW AND YET SHE FUCKING HAD TIME FOR THIS STUPID SHIT)

Everything seemed to revolve around Usagi and Mamoru (sometimes Chibiusa too). It lowkey came off that way at times even in the 90s anime, but in the manga or Crystal? You'd be hard-pressed to find the girls engaging in their stated hobbies at most points in time, because they're usually all together and talking about their prince and princess.

Hell, even Haruka - Sailor Uranus herself - seemed much more interested in Usagi than she ever did in Michiru, her actual girlfriend.

So... am I just missing something? I've seen people say that as they grow older, they prefer the manga/Crystal to the 90s anime. But I've never seen anyone other than myself express the opposite sentiment.

But it's true - unless I completely leave my brain at the door, I have a hard time enjoying the manga for what it is. The characters I'm most interested in or attached to quickly get swept aside for the characters I have the least interest in. No more does that ring true than the Stars arc of the manga, where Naoko Takeuchi basically speedruns killing off literally the entire cast until Sailor Moon's the only one left standing. Most characters don't even get to go out in a blaze of glory or anything - it's got nothing on the finale of the 90s anime's first season in that regard. If you're lucky, you'll get a single panel where your entire existence is ripped to shreds - but sometimes you'll be killed literally off-screen!!

There's a number of questionable manga-exclusive aspects that rubbed me the wrong way as well, such as poor Sailor Pluto being assigned as a child to guard the Door of Time in complete and total solitude. While I appreciate more Silver Millennium lore that the manga provided (the anime hardly mentioned it past the first arc), it was more than a little uncomfortable knowing the OG Queen Serenity conscripted the Inner Senshi as small children to become Princess Serenity's guardians. Really casts Queen Serenity and her Moon Kingdom in a much darker light - like maybe Queen Beryl and Queen Nehelenia had a point in trying to take them down (though the manga I believe retcons all past villains as incarnations of Chaos, so that arguably removes all prior villains' agency?). Lots of little things that I didn't think twice about, but now that I look at them again, I'm wondering WTF Naoko Takeuchi was thinking.

Though I don't want to be too hard on her. Poor girl was working under stress far longer than she'd planned to (she'd intended on ending the story either by the Dark Kingdom or Black Moon arc), so it's no surprise there's a lot of clunk and clutter in the narrative.

I often wondered if Naoko Takeuchi really wanted to make Sailor Moon with a Super Sentai-esque setup in the first place. After all, her first big hit was Sailor V, which was exclusively Minako and Artemis fighting evil with Minako having her own masked love interest she ended up being at odds with and he eventually died. With a scant few secondary characters here and there.

It led to me thinking about what Sailor Moon would be like if Naoko kept the cast to a more Sailor V-like size. That, perhaps, the Sailor Moon she really wanted to make would be quite a different beast from how we know it to be today.

So this lengthy diatribe about my personal conflicts with my waning fondness for the manga versus my strengthened love for the OG anime and live-action show was actually a preamble to a bizarre AU I wrote an outline for over a year ago but never posted in public. I had considered posting it to Sailor Moon's Reddit back then, but I (probably wisely) held off, as my musing went way off the rails.

But I figured now's a good time as any to share it here, at least. Though it'll need to be its own post since I wrote so goddamn much in this post alone, wow.

On that note, I'll end with this: The only iteration of UsaMamo that I unironically enjoyed and rooted for is...

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real-life-senshi · 9 months

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Sailor Moon was always by my side. Mitsuishi Kotono and Kitagawa Keiko's special conversation on Sailor Moon Cosmos

(OP: This was from July 15th, 2023. Somehow I missed this article when it was first released... Whoops. Here's the belated translation.)

In 2014, when the new anime Sailor Moon Crystal began, fans of the 90s anime were gushing. We get to see Sailor Moon again...! And now, with the movie version of Sailor Moon Cosmos (both the first and second parts are in theatres), the series has finally come to its conclusion. This time, exclusive to MOVIE WALKER PRESS, Mitsuishi Kotono, who plays Eternal Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino, and Kitagawa Keiko, who plays Sailor Cosmos, got their dream to share a conversation come true! They reminisced on their experience during production, how they portrayed their roles, and what the existence of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon mean for both of them.

「 What I worked hard for in the '90s has actually come to fruition… I really felt that. 」 (Mitsuishi)

― This movie is the culmination of the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal series that started in 2014. From the initial Crystal series to this movie, people who grew up watching the 90's anime became the chosen cast… How was it for you, Mitsuishi-san, to work with the viewers of those days?

Mitsuishi 「 That's true. At first, I was the only confirmed voice casting for the film, and then the other Sailor Senshi auditioned and one by one, we finally came together. 」

― It is just like at the very beginning of the work, isn't it? At first, Usagi was alone, but then Sailor Mercury's Ami Mizuno, then Sailor Mars' Rei Hino, and so on, gathered together.

Mitsuishi 「 In the beginning I felt very lonely recording on my own, so I was glad when one by one the Sailor Senshi gathered together. Many of the cast and staff had told me “I’ve watched it back then”! “What I worked hard for in the 90s has actually come to fruition”, “the children who would proclaim ‘I want to be like Sailor Moon’ have become such splendid adults, all of them really flourished as a lady and just like a Senshi” was the impression I received firsthand. Of course, the girls are all professionals, so they were able to put aside their feelings as a fan and tackled their voicing roles seriously, and I felt that they supported me more than I did for them. We also get together in private, and I sincerely feel that I have made it this far because I had their support. 」

― Kitagawa-san, who plays Sailor Cosmos, is also a member of the so-called "Sailor Moon generation," right?

Kitagawa 「 Mitsuishi-san is a goddess to me. When I was a child, the first manga I picked up was Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, which I followed the serialization in Nakayoshi, and was part of the generation that also participated in Sailor Moon’s ``Great Service For All Applicants''. 」

― You can send stamps to the Nakayoshi editorial office and get cute goodies. So nostalgic!

Kitagawa 「 Yes, that's right. When I first worked with Mitsuishi-san on the JDrama Rikokatsu, the first thing we talked about was Sailor Moon. I also loved Evangelion, so I recall we talked about that as well (Editor's note: Mitsuishi played Katsuragi Misato in the series Neon Genesis Evangelion.). I think it is probably the same for everyone from my generation, that I grew up listening to Mitsuishi-san’s voice, so during Rikokatsu it felt natural and comfortable for me to co-portray the roles of mother and daughter with Mitsuishi-san. Though we hadn’t worked together since the drama, we kept in touch from time to time, so it didn't feel like it had actually been that long of a time. 」

Mitsuishi 「 For me, because I often see you on TV. When watching TV, I’d go “Ah, it's Keiko-chan! She's so beautiful!” (lol). So I also didn't feel like it had been a long time since I last saw you. 」

― When thinking about Kitagawa-san in this context, we’d easily think of the image of Sailor Mars from the live-action drama, but this time you will be playing a different role, Sailor Cosmos.

Kitagawa 「 I was happy when I initially received the offer, but I was also puzzled. In the live-action, Sawai Miyuu-san, who played Sailor Moon, was truly the center of our group, being supported by the 4 Senshi, but this time Sailor Cosmos’s role gives the impression of being " the root of the Sailor Senshi". Instead of being on the “supporting side”, that this role was so close to Usagi-chan's position, it felt like a sanctuary in a sense... a place that I felt I couldn’t jump into. So while I was very happy to be offered the role, and I was very eager to be a part of this new production, simultaneously I’d wonder “Am I the right person for this role?”… causing me conflicting feelings. I ended up seeking consult with all the members of what is referred to as the “Senshi-kai” (戦士会, Senshi Reunion) nowadays, the Senshi cast members of the live-action series. But, "This is the last production of the Crystal series, I’m so happy you get to play such a role in that, I definitely want you to do it!” was what everyone told me, and so they gave me the push I needed to accept the offer.」

― How was it for you when actually voicing the role?

Kitagawa 「 Before I recorded my part, I was provided a [voice] sample called a guide, and this time Mitsuishi-san was the one who dubbed the guide for me. It was already the perfect Sailor Cosmos. When I read the script, it was difficult to grasp the nuances of Sailor Cosmos' and Guardian Cosmos’s character, but Mitsuishi-san helped me realize it would be fine if I did it like this. “Mitsuishi-san is amazing...”, I thought again in that moment. I feel that Usagi-chan's voice has also become deeper and deeper with each successive series. 」

Mitsuishi 「 About that, it's because the days have piled up...! (lol) 」

Kitagawa 「 Not at all, to have overcome many hardships, to be able to feel the image of “Usagi-chan of the present” really moved me. On the day of recording, Mitsuishi-san come to visit, as well as Takeuchi Naoko-sensei, so I was very nervous. (lol) 」

― For Mitsuishi-san, what were some things you were specifically mindful of when portraying Usagi-chan in this work?

Mitsuishi 「 This time around, her friends and Mamo-chan that she love all disappeared right in front of her, and in the second part, her friends appear as her enemies. Even though the scenario where everyone had become an enemy had also happened earlier in the series, this time was the toughest of them. Even though I felt fine when I was reading the script, it still became really tough when I actually heard the voices. Even when battered and bruised, I am determined to get back the people who are important to me, with a power that does not spring from hatred, it's with these thoughts I portrayed the role with a positive and great sense of power. 」

「 Having taught me many things, Sailor Moon is a series that is impossible for me to separate myself from. 」 (Kitagawa)

― Once again, what kind of existence does the work "Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon" mean for the two of you?

Mitsuishi 「 The reason I have made it this far as a voice actress is large because of this series, so it's a work that's very important to me. Since working on the Crystal series, I feel as if I'm giving back the energy everyone has given me when I was working in the 90s. Even in my daily life, I have the feeling that Sailor Moon is just around the corner in my mind. For example, sometimes the crescent moon is right above the Sky Tree, and whenever I see a picture of it on social media, my first thought is it looks like a big Moon Stick (lol). "If we had such a big Moon Stick, we could cleanse the entire Earth and bring peace to the world!" I sometimes think of outlandish things like that. 」

― That's an idea that only Mitsuishi-san, who has been playing Sailor Moon for a long time, could come up with... as expected!

Kitagawa 「 It really is! It's wonderful… 」

― And Kitagawa-san, what kind of influence did Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon have on your life?

Kitagawa 「 No matter with the series or with Mitsuishi-san, I've felt a sense of a destined connection with them. It was Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon that led me to make my debut as an actress, and when I worked as a lead actress on a drama series, or when I try my hand at voice acting, Mitsuishi-san often become part of such key moments of my experience. Moreover, this year marks the 20th anniversary of both the live-action series, and my career in the entertainment industry, I feel that Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon had been part of many significant turning points in my life. This is a series that is impossible for me to separate myself from. 」

Mitsuishi 「 In all honesty, I had originally been worried if I should bring up an old tokusatsu work with you given you are a major actress in the industry. 」

Kitagawa 「 I'm someone who prefers to speak openly and face things with dignity. I've always loved Sailor Moon, so much so I was like, "I'm going to audition and receive a role in the live-action version of Sailor Moon and work in Tokyo!" From the filming experience, I was taught filming methods, how to behave on set, how to act, how to dance, etc., and I really learned a lot. 」

Mitsuishi 「 Tokusatsu is a very difficult field. I've always felt that any actors or actresses who had overcome working in Tokusatsu would have the strength and spirit to survive in any field of the acting industry. 」

Kitagawa 「 It's the type of workspace and shooting site where you are required to do any and every sort of thing. Especially for the Sailor Moon series, even after transformation it would still be us actresses who are in costume, so that made it even more challenging. 」

Mitsuishi 「 Behind you it goes BOOM! And you'd still have to walk cooly in front of the explosion. 」

Kitagawa 「 At first I was shocked by the explosions, but I gradually got used to them, even napalm (explosions commonly used in Tokusatsu) I ended up not thinking anything of it (lol). I think the reason I've been able to do this for 20 years without faltering is that I have developed a great bond with everyone I have performed with the drama series. All members of the “Senshi-kai” (戦士会, Senshi Reunion) haven't left the entertainment industry, and we are all working hard in the same world. Even now would go to see and support each other's works, I am sure they will see this film as well. It's because of each other's presence that we have been able to continuously move forward, it's a sentiment that I hold deeply and feel very encouraged by. 」

― Lastly, for the Sailor Moon fans who have all grown up now, what are some of the highlights you'd like to share about this movie?

Mitsuishi 「 I think that as we grow older, with all the talks about 'love' and 'justice' that Sailor Moon does, more and more often we may feel embarrassed thinking about it. But for those who have loved Sailor Moon since the '90s", Usagi-chan's 'love' and 'justice' taken root somewhere in their hearts. So, I hope that this film will help them remember those things that they may have forgotten, and empower them to move forward with their lives with positivity. 」

Kitagawa 「 It's as if I was given the strength of 'positivity' and 'dedication' from this film. As I got older, there was a part of me that became afraid of failure... Because I'm in my 30s now and have been doing this job for 20 years, more and more I began to think 'I mustn't make mistakes'. In this film, Usagi-chan has to face and admit her past mistakes and works to correct her course, the part where she stands back up again to face her challenges, I was touched by that part of the story. I thought to myself, rather than shutting myself away in fear of failure or making mistakes, "I want to live my life with dignity" and was inspired to face live my life with positivity. It gave me the courage to not hold myself back and to take things easier. I am certain many people of my generation are at that point in their lives, too, and I think through watching this film Sailor Moon would give them a push to face their challenges and reassure them "It's okay". 」

#sailor moon cosmos #sailor moon cosmos part 2 #kitagawa keiko #mitsuishi kotono #sailor cosmos #pretty guardian sailor moon #pgsm #sawai miyuu #komatsu ayaka #izumi rika #azama mew #pgsm cast #khmyh translates #khmyh's fansub & translations

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