The Timeless Television of SAILOR MOON (Season 1) (Patreon)

I 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