Okay, I'm a little ashamed of this one and I didn't actually watch enough of it to remember what was going on most of the time. But it caught my eye because its reruns were being aired around the same time I was checking out Dragon Ball Z.
Of course what catches my eye so often with Anime is the structure. In many cases this "Superman" type of foundation where the heroes or in this case heroines are just teenage school girls until they transform into the Sailor Scouts. When I first saw it, it just featured three girls who are all friends but, if I remember right, don't even know the that each one also has the powers that turn them into Sailor Scouts. As with other Anime it creates a character for a different element. The main character, Serena, changes to Sailor Moon and is the leader. The middle girl, Raye, changes to Sailor Mars and her power is fire. The girl on the end, Amy, transforms into Mercury and harnesses water. Simple and straightforward.
I'm not sure why the moon overrules the planets, but like I said, I didn't pay too close attention. There was an episode where Raye questions Serena's position as leader. This is also common in Anime. Lance was always calling into question Keith's leadership in Voltron. But in this case it turns out that Serena is a princess and the daughter of Queen Serenity who is the moon queen, or something.
I thought it was interesting because I'd never seen an all female cast
for an anime superhero cartoon like this. I guess the reason it's stayed in my
mind so long is because it's a good example of a lot of potential
wasted. But like DBZ and the others, they still hadn't come up with a good way to write girl heroines. As I noted before, they wanted strong women without sacrificing any of the girlie-girlie nature or the need for a hero to save them. And I'm not offended by that, it's just that I think you really can have both. It would be more of the context of a Princess Leia type that can take care of herself and everyone else but still is charmed and grateful when her Han Solo can swoop in and save the day. The creators of the 80's and 90's anime just couldn't think in that kind of detail though. In the case of Sailor Moon they added a boy character... a boy that Serena has a crush on in real life who transforms into Tuxedo Mask. The battles follow the same pattern - the Sailor Scouts fight but Tuxedo Mask always needs to come in and save them at the last minute which thrills Sailor Moon of course. Very little variance from episode to episode, much like Voltron never winning until he pulls the blazing sword to cut the enemy in half.
The villains had names that were all types of jewels and stones like Queen Beryl and Malachite although the colors didn't match. I don't know why I like groupings like this in anime. Lol.
After a while they started adding more planets. I stopped watching steadily after the introduction of Sailor Venus, in orange. I sort of remember when Sailor Jupiter, in green, first appeared. But I don't remember a lot about the story lines because they were mostly very shallow.
And then I drew the line when I flipped it on one day and saw the the older girls, Sailors Neptune and Uranus. It was getting a little weird at that point and these two were obviously supposed to be lesbians. It didn't even seem like they were trying to pretend that they were just best friends either, as I recall. I remember thinking it was a little balls-out for a kids' show at the time. Not sure if there was a sailor Saturn or why they skipped her if there wasn't. Like I said. Not much substance. Just a vehicle for sexy schoolgirl uniforms and long transformation sequences.
The opening can give you a good idea of the entire series without ever having to actually watch it. It just nags at me when I think about it that it was was possibly a good concept that was poorly done. I just think it
could've been much better. Perhaps fan fiction has fixed some of its
flaws. I don't really know though.
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