My Complicated Feelings on Sailor Moon Eternal

I never apologized so much than when my stepdaughter and I watched Sailor Moon Eternal.

That’s not to say that my stepdaughter doesn’t have an appreciation of the Magical Girl genre.

But there was something about watching the two-part retelling of the Dark Moon Circus arc that felt so monumentally…underwhelming.

Like…we waited 5 years for THIS? Seriously?

I think part of the reason I’m so hypercritical is because I was such a huge Sailor Moon fan growing up.

I still remember my sense of awe as an uninitiated 8-year-old, turning the channel to UPN in 1995 and getting a hit with a wave of magical girl power.

There was absolutely nothing like it on TV at the time (well, unless you count Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers; ironically, another Japanese export). It was colourful, it featured characters with interesting backstories, it had that kickass dubbed song that was etched into the psyche of anyone who lived through the 90s:

Fighting evil by moonlight,

Winning love by daylight,

Never running from a real fight,

She is the one named Sailor Moon!

I honestly didn’t have a chance; I was hooked on the show from the onset.

I didn’t mind that the dialogue in the dub was cheesy, or that the original North American DiC dub did took some drastic liberties on the show for Western audiences (ie. Odango-head became meatball-head, Usagi became Serena, Zoicite became a woman)

Sailor Moon was a show near and dear to my heart. So much so that when I discovered Hey Arnold! in 1996 and the wide world of fanfiction in 1998, the next step seemed almost too logical…

But I digress.

So, now, as a bitter, disenchanted grown adult woman, what is my grievance with Sailor Moon?

Well, for starters, I’m now grappling with the realization that maybe the show wasn’t as great as I remembered?

Maybe my nostalgia is clouding my better judgment, and the show was flawed from the beginning.

Confession: as much as I enjoyed Sailor Moon, to this day, I have never watched the final season of the original anime.

I know what happens; I scoured the Internet in the late 90s to find information on Sailor Moon and was blown away by all the content that I DIDN’T know about, thanks in no small part to the DiC dub getting cancelled (There’s Outer Senshi? Everyone DIES in the first season?)

Of course, I consumed it ravenously when the show was picked up again, this time by Cartoon Network for their Toonami block where they showed Sailor Moon at 4pm, the perfect after-school time slot.

I watched seasons 3 and 4 faithfully, then waited patiently for the localization of season 5 to hit the airwaves…

And that’s when the “total eclipse” occurred. In 2004, all licensing of English language versions of Sailor Moon abruptly ceased, and the show was pulled from television.

The DiC dubs of the show have been scrubbed from existence, effectively erasing a huge portion of my childhood from public record.

To this date, there has never been a full DVD or VHS boxset release of the DiC version of Sailor Moon. Which is maddeningly to think about, since it was this version of the show that catapulted the series into fame in North America.

It’s flawed. It’s campy. But it was the only Sailor Moon I knew as a kid. It was impactful to me, and for me and many others, the gateway drug into the world of anime.

Sailor Moon would eventually return to North America in 2014 with the release of the Viz dubs.

That same year Toei announced Sailor Moon Crystal.

Initially I was hyped; finally, some new Sailor Moon content after years of radio silence!

But that excitement quickly turned to disappointment.

First of all, the show followed the canon of the manga and not of the original series from the 90s.

At the time, aside from a couple issues of Tokyopop that I owned, I never read the manga of Sailor Moon.

I eventually rectified that, consuming the entire tome with my stepdaughter. And that’s when I came to a startling revelation….

Sailor Moon – the original Sailor Moon….isn’t all that great.

I was shocked at how different the anime was from the source content. And I’m not even talking about the dubs. I mean the original Japanese anime compared to the original manga release.

The animated series took a lot of liberties that fleshed out the characters and made them so more appealing and interesting.

This is made all the more apparent when you realize that Crystal is a more faithful adaptation to the manga. All its flaws and warts are amplified when put up against the 90s anime.

While Sailor Moon the manga is gorgeous to behold, Sailor Moon Crystal is a muddy, incoherent mess of a story. The characters are flat and only exist to serve and protect Usagi, and as a result, you never feel quite connected to any of them in the same way.

In fact, while the first two seasons of the show focused on getting down the aesthetic look of Sailor Moon, that was eventually scrapped in favour of making the show look more similar to the original anime.

So what we get is basically yet ANOTHER retelling of the Sailor Moon saga, only worse.

(However, I will say that I genuinely enjoyed season 3, and I especially think the handling of the Outer Senshi was done superior in the Crystal version. And some of the newer songs are legitimate bangers.

Just when the show was finding its footing, Toei pivoted when it came time to do the Dark Moon Circus arc. Rather than doing a proper series, Toei instead opted to do a two-part movie. This was announced in 2017.

Y’all it took them three years before they showed us ANYTHING. And when they did it was a clip of Sailor Moon transforming.

It took them 5 years to animate a subpar version of the Sailor Moon anime.

What I’m trying to say is that I’m frustrated with the handling of Sailor Moon.

I’m not sure who I should be more upset with – Naoki Takeuchi, the creator, or Toei Animation, the studio that has essentially spent the last half decade disrespecting the legacy of what made Sailor Moon so great.

Sailor Moon was the most popular anime in North America. Now? It’s an afterthought. It truly boggles my mind.

I’ve jokingly mentioned in the past that if I ever had the ability to own the rights to Sailor Moon or to write the script for a Hollywood adaptation, I would do it in a heartbeat.

That is why I feel so passionately about my YA novel. Shows like Miraculous Ladybug, Steven Universe and Star vs. the Forces of Evil prove that shows that embody the essence of Sailor Moon are still hugely popular. And if nothing of note is being done with Sailor Moon, then it’s time for creators to rise up and make their own versions.

And that is what I’m trying to accomplish. I’m writing a story about a group of five girls with magical powers. In time, I hope to tell you more about each character, but for now I’m proud to say that the short story about one of the five is set to be published in Black Sci-Fi Short Stories on June 15^th.

My story is “Suffering Inside, But Still I Soar”, which centres around the backstory of Valerie, a teenager from Newfoundland who possesses the power of flight.

Valerie’s character is special to me as she’s the first character I imagined when I conceived the idea for my novel.

I wanted to create a character who was strong, but also burdened with psychological aspects of possessing a power they can’t quite control or comprehend.

My goal is to write characters who are not superheroes, they’re magical girls. I believe there is a subtle difference in writing for both genres, and I’m looking to zero in on the nuance that make a character not only strong, but relatable.

I didn’t love Sailor Moon JUST for the action and the super powers. I loved Sailor Moon because it was about a girl struggling to live up to this legacy of ruling an entire planet and possessing a power capable of performing miracles.

That’s legendary stuff. It should be explored and teased and expanded upon. Why hasn’t the Sailor Moon universe been expanded upon in over 30 years?!?!

There is so much LORE to the Sailor Moon universe, I think it’s a crime it hasn’t been further expanded. Does ChibiUsa ever become the Queen of Crystal Tokyo? What happens to Usagi and her friends after the end of Season 5, but before the events that bring rise to Crystal Tokyo? Are there other Sailor Senshi in the universe, and what are their stories? The possibilities seem infinite.

Now, I’m not saying that Naoko Takeuchi should go the route Disney has taken with Star Wars, diluting the brand to the point where we get such uninspired romps as Solo.

But it’s been over two decades since Sailor Moon has ended, and rather than a continuation of the legacy, the franchise has been left to languish, selling lingerie and anti-syphilis PSAs. And it deserves so, so much better.

Anyway, the choice to set the location in Newfoundland came from trip as part of a work retreat in 2019. I immediately fell in love with the Canadian province and knew then and there that it had to be a backdrop for the character of Valerie.

Having this story published is the start in the right direction to realizing my dream of creating my own Sailor Moon.

I really want to get up close and personal with all my characters, so that when they are expressed on the page, you fall in love with them in the same way I fell in love with the anime in 1995 and it changed the trajectory of my life.

I hope you’ll pick up a copy of the book when it comes out on June 15, 2021. Black Sci-Fi Short Stories features a collection of several stories by famous Black authors and up-and-coming Black voices in the genre.

I am honoured to be listed alongside some of the greats, such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Pauline Hopkins, and I truly hope you enjoy my contribution to this amazing anthology.

As for Sailor Moon? I will always love the franchise, and it is my dream to someday write the ultimate love letter to the biggest cultural influence of my youth in the form of a YA novel.

I only hope that someday Naoko Takeuchi decides to continue her story, and inspire a new generation of young girls to stand for love and justice, to right wrongs, and to triumph over evil. Until then, it is up to fans like me and people like you to remind the world why we fell in love with the series in the first place.