Manga Monday: Sailor Moon

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon

Writer/Artist: Naoko Takeuchi
Genre: Magical girl
Number of Volumes: 19 (original release), 12 (re-release)
Available on MangaFox: Yes

What It’s About

Sailor Moon follows the adventures of a middle schooler named Usagi as she transforms into the titular character to search for a magical artifact called the “Legendary Silver Crystal”. During her journey, she leads a diverse group of comrades, the Sailor Scouts, as they battle against villains to prevent the theft of the Silver Crystal and the destruction of the solar system, usually defeating the enemy with the magical girl traits of love and friendship!

Strengths

If you were alive through the 1990s, you know who Sailor Moon is. She’s fighting evil by the moonlight, winning love by the daylight after all! The girl needs absolutely no introduction! Sailor Moon is the most popular magical-girl-fighting-evil-dudes property that’s ever existed! But most people seem to know her from the anime, and not the manga, where she started. Remedy that today with twelve volumes of badass teenage girls!

Each storyline of Sailor Moon follows Usagi and her group of Sailor Scouts as they work to banish forces that want to drain Earth’s energy and conquer the universe. The Negaverse, the Dark Circus, even other Sailor Scouts! Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are the core group that use some ridiculous sounding attacks to defeat the baddies and keep the world safe! Plus Tuxedo Mask is there, but c’mon, all he does is throw some roses and give pep talks, this is all the girls when it comes to kicking ass!

The themes of Sailor Moon are all about friendship and overcoming evil through love and understanding. In a world where women are more than often pitted against each other as competition, having Usagi and her group of friends have each others’ backs no matter what is a lovely message of acceptance and it’s what’s stuck with me for years. The personalities within the group are great fun too! Mars is always yelling at Moon for being lazy, Venus and Jupiter are often love struck, Mercury just wants to study. There’s diversity within the group and everyone will find a favourite for different reasons.

Weaknesses

Does Sailor Moon start to feel a little repetitive after a while? Absolutely. I mean, watch the first ten episodes of the anime and you see the same pattern: Usagi whines and/or swoons over a guy and/or food and/or shopping. Bad guy emerges and drains some energy from idiot humans that seem to willingly go into danger. Usagi cries she can’t defeat them. Tuxedo Mask shows up to say she can. She defeats the evil and wins. Rinse. Repeat.

Not that this is entirely a bad thing. Just know going in that the variety of storytelling isn’t going to change much. Characters get some development, villains come and go, each with unique and interesting designs so at least they visually stand out, but the actions they go through might leave something to be desired in the long run.

And–just real quick–a personal gripe I have with Sailor Moon that I can never say enough? Chibiusa. My god she is the most obnoxious character ever! Except for maybe Scrappy-Doo. If you’re anything like me and hate annoying, entitled children, as soon as Chibiusa hits the scene, your interest will wane.

Give it a Chance/Leave it Be

Sailor Moon is a staple in the magical girl format of media! The characters, the transformations, the artwork, the villains, everything that’s in Sailor Moon is a defining feature and something that keeps it going for years to come. Defeating evil with friendship and love to save the universe means that Sailor Moon and her Sailor Scouts can be a little repetitive and a little vapid at times, but they more or less created the magical girl that we know and love today, and if it’s entertaining, what’s the problem? In the name of the moon, read some Sailor Moon!