laceblade | Entries tagged with manga: sailor moon

The blog Manga Bookshelf regularly hosts what they call, "Manga Moveable Feasts," which are essentially blog carnivals for specific series.

This week, people who blog about manga have been writing about Sailor Moon. You can find link round-ups of the various posts here. I especially enjoyed Sailor Moon and Femininity.

In this roundtable post, while discussing the likeability of Usagi (Sailor Moon)'s character at the onset of the series, David says the following:

[Sailor V]’s excited that she can become glamorous and powerful and, to a lesser extent, help people. If Usagi had something compelling going on in her life, the added responsibilities might actually seem like a burden, but she seems put out because it’s cutting into her nap time. It reminds me of how right Joss Whedon got this dynamic so right with Buffy, whose destiny was really gruesome and dangerous, and Cordelia, who went from being very shallow to really enjoying making a difference. Usagi is a very “Math is hard!” type. I’m looking forward when manga Usagi catches up with anime Usagi, who was a lot more likable and credible.

There is this thesis I've had for a while, that all Joss Whedon TV shows* are based on anime series.
Dollhouse can be mapped pretty easily to Gunslinger Girl.
Firefly has a very similar premise to Cowboy Bebop.
(In both cases, I would argue that the anime is better.)

Although less obvious at first blush, I'd postulate that the premise & some characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer map on to Sailor Moon.
(In this case, I would argue that Buffy takes Sailor Moon and makes it into an overall better show.)

Usagi Tsukino/Buffy Summers is a blonde school girl who has special powers. Usagi/Buffy's friends have special powers, too, but Usagi/Buffy's powers are The Most Special and instrumental in saving the world multiple times.

Usagi/Buffy have a love interests in a tall/dark/handsome man, Tuxedo Mask/Angel. This love interest is forbidden in both series (Angel is a vampire; Tuxedo Mask is after the Imperium Crystal - JUST LIKE THE ENEMY), and the man is marked as suspicious by Usagi/Buffy's narrative-dumping mentor with a British accent, Luna/Giles. [I should note that Luna's accent is only British in the English dub, but if Whedon did watch Sailor Moon in the mid-nineties, he probably watched the dub.]

Usagi/Buffy fight against a never-ending horde of demons. Their friends help them! I view Willow as a combination of Sailor Mercury (girl genius with an IQ of 300) and Sailor Mars (a spiritual & mature person, with a temper).
Xander is a little more narratively useful because he doesn't have any special powers. But he's much more fleshed out than Usagi's power-less friend Naru, who is mostly forgotten after the first arc of the manga.

The cross-series relationship that interests me the most is the fusion of Sailor Chibi Moon and Sailor Saturn into Buffy's younger sister, Dawn.
( Spoilers for Buffy season 5 and the 2nd/3rd story arcs of Sailor Moon, if you care. )

In the TV show, Buffy's receipt of her ultimate power through the vehicle of a scythe (never referenced in any previous season) seems kind of out of place, but it could be a nod to shoujo anime in general, or Sailor Moon specifically. Sailor Moon has a crescent wand when she first transforms. Overtime, as her power grows, the wand changes and develops into a staff.

Overall, I think that Buffy is a better-developed show. Sometimes the shows explore the same themes - what would happen if Buffy/Usagi lost their powers? What would happen if Angel/Tuxedo Mask's personality changed and they were evil? What happens to Usagi/Buffy when he leaves? but I think Buffy does a better job of examining power and responsibility. It also has a lot more dudes, so depending on your preference, YMMV.

It's my head-canon that Whedon came up with Buffy after watching the Sailor Moon anime, and possibly reading the manga. I can pretty clearly imagine him watching it, and tearing his hair out, thinking, "This premise has so much potential! I can make it so much better if I just do this here, and that there...." etc.

*Due to Angel's status as a spinoff of Buffy, I leave this out of the postulation.

ETA: As this is the type of post to generate discussion, I just want to point out that there are comments on both the DW and the LJ version of the post. DW people, the link to LJ is below.

LJ people, the DW link is here: http://laceblade.dreamwidth.org/545960.html

Daughter of ETA:
After spending some time on Google, I wanted to link to some things I found.

1) A discussion in the comments at Whedonesque. Comments also compare Ann & Alan to Drusilla & Spike. Someone calls Sailor Moon porn there, though, so I'm not really sure what that's about.

2) This blog post purports that one of the movie producers, Fran Rubel Kuzui, was a Sailor Moon fan. It's well-known that the Kazuis had no creative input on the TV series, though.

There's an interview here with Fran Rubel Kuzui, that talks about bringing some of Sailor Moon's traits to Buffy.
Kuzui wanted to bring Sailor Moon’s traits and martial arts skills to the character. "The writer, Joss Whedon, loved the idea, so we set out to rewrite the script." The movie was picked up by a studio within three weeks of the revised script’s completion.

Kuzui was married to a Japanese man, Kaz Kuzui, the third executive producer of Buffy.

3) There are at least 13 crossover fics..

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/545862.html

Lots of comics!reading. Prompted by: Borders going-out-of-business sales, living 2 blocks from a comics shop, multiple bad pain days.

I don't really do heavy synopses; sorry if that's what you're looking for.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Campus Apocalypse - 4-volume manga series by Mingming. An AU!Evangelion in which everyone attends school, and fights in a virtual reality world with guns.
The art style was mediocre, but it was emotionally satisfying in that the kids - Kaworu, Rei, Shinji, Asuka, etc. all stand up for each other in a way they never do in the actual Evangelion series. I found the plot mostly nonsensical.

I'm not upset that I read it, but I don't think I'll be keeping it. Anybody want it? I'll send it to you for the cost of shipping.

Codename Sailor V by Naoko Takeuchi, volume 1 of 2. The titular Sailor V character is Sailor Venus, one of Sailor Moon's friends/fellow fighters in the Sailor Moon series. Sailor V was a pre-cursor to the Sailor Moon saga, and I enjoyed reading it (I've been wanting to for a long time!). Minako is ready to kick some ass right from the beginning in a way that takes a few issues before Usagi feels the same way in the sister series.
This was fun to read in a cracktastic way - there isn't much in the way of "deep, meaningful plot." Still, it was a fun ride, and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it.

Sailor Moon, vol. 1 also by Naoko Takeuchi, a U.S. reprint by Kodansha. I'm one of the rare people who has all 18 volumes of Tokyopop's initial print of Sailor Moon. The original printing was pretty small (shorter, thinner than the average manga book), and the glue job was actually the worst I've ever seen in manga.

This re-release by Kodansha used the art touch-ups from the Japanese reprint. So a lot of the art looks cleaner, more in proportion, etc. If you're interested in side-by-side comparisons with the original, you can check that out here. Some of the changes I like, but one thing I liked about the original was when characters "go faceless," or their features - eyes, nose, etc. - disappear in moments of high drama, when characters are attacking or shouting or etc. So, while I'm really really glad about the re-print, I'll be saving my old tomes even though they're falling apart.

I won't recap the plot/premise because most of you know it (and if you don't, you can read such a review here.)

Buffy, Season 9 - Only one issue so far, but it looks like it's going to be a better ride than Season 8 was (this will have fewer characters, much less EPIC of a plot, etc). I like reading these a lot; the comedic timing of the show still transfers, and I like re-visiting these characters.

Angel & Faith - It's hard to talk about this much without giving away massive, massive spoilers for the end of Buffy Season 8, so let's just say that based on first issue, I like this even more than Buffy season 9. It's Angel and Faith, captured perfectly in comics form, doing what I like watching them do best - struggle with redemption for the terrible things they've done.
This takes place on the same timeline as Buffy Season 9.

Batwoman - with DC revamping 52 of its titles, I figured I'd jump on board with a few of them. For Batwoman, I read the Batwoman: Elegy compilation, and have now read the first issue of the new series. I'd say this is worth reading for the art style alone: it's gorgeous. As bonus points, Batwoman herself is a lesbian, which is much-appreciated in the sausagefest wasteland that is Most of DC's Other Titles. I've heard this team had a hard time sticking to a schedule during Elegy, so I hope that they can keep it up.
Either way, I highly recommend checking out Batwoman: Elegy, which tells her backstory. Our library has multiple copies.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - A decent first issue, imo. I like the art style, there are heaps of nostalgia for me, as I owned lots of TMNT action figures in my youth and enjoyed the gritty 80s movies (or was it early 90s??). They're putting a few twists on things: April O'Neill is a lab researcher instead of a reporter, Raphael seems estranged from his fellow turtles in the present although we don't know why, etc.
As a warning, there is a page of domestic violence in the first issue, although I don't think it will be a continuing storyline.

Next week I intend to check out Wonder Woman and the new Ultimate Spiderman.
I have piles of manga to read, too. I left Borders more than once carrying armfuls, ^^;

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/531940.html

The news that the Sailor Moon manga is being re-released in America is very exciting, like, I feel elated.

The manga originally started being released over here in 1997 by MIXX/COMX/Tokyopop, and has long since been out of print. The versions were pretty shitty. I have double-copies of a number of tankoubon, because the glue jobs were pretty terrible and pages would fall out, sometimes entire sections.

ALSO, they're releasing the prequel to Sailor Moon, Sailor V, which has never been released in the U.S., and I've never read before!

It bodes well for the re-release of other items that have been out of print for a long time, like Takeuchi's artbooks, or the anime DVDs (which also weren't stellar quality products the first time around).

Sailor Moon was the first anime that I ever saw, and the first manga that I ever read. I still love the artwork, it is a major comfort reread for me.

Even if the manga and anime that I own right now will plummet in value (single volumes range in price on Amazon.com from $20-300), I am really grateful that new fans will be born, and that I'll be able to use my money to support one of my favorite fandoms of all time in return for quality, beautiful products.

Thank you, Kodansha USA. I hope that you continue to do badass things in the future.

2011 will be a good year for historical shoujo in the U.S.! Vertical's release of Osamu Tezuka's Princess Knight are slated for this year too, I think.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/499077.html

I don't really have anything to say, except that I keep uploading Sailor Moon icons and I can't stop!

I was thinking yesterday that my favorite characters in Sailor Moon vary, depending on the source.

Sailor Moon is a rich fandom in that there are multiple iterations of the story that are widely consumed by fandom - there are different canons that are all canon!

The main three are the manga, the anime, and the live-action.
There are also a whole bunch of musicals, which I'll be watching once I'm finished with the anime.

In the manga, my favorites are Mars, Venus, Saturn, and usually Moon.

In the anime, I find Venus heinous but not likeable. I find Mars less irritating than Venus, but do not love her nearly as much as I do in the manga.
In the anime, I like Uranus and Moon, and Chibi Moon. I think Jupiter and Mercury are pretty likeable, too.

I've only watched PGSM (live-action) once, but I kind of like everyone in it. The options are more limited here - there are no Outer Senshi. Mercury was totally sweet, but I found all of the characters likeable. Unlike the manga, which focuses characterization on Usagi, and the anime, which inexplicably focuses characterization on the enemies, PGSM does a fantastic job of fleshing out everyone.

I want to write about favorite pairings, but I think I'll wait until I get through Stars, to see if I favor Usagi/Seiya, or not.

I think my favorite thing about each iteration is that it passes the Bechdel Test without batting an eye. This is because THE ENTIRE CAST is almost always women, except for brief/useless appearances by Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/474917.html

Staying home sick means an icon post.

If you like the art used in the icons, please visit the artists' websites:
Here and here.

Preview:

( The rest lie under the cut. )

For those unfamiliar with Sailor Moon....the femslash potential is basically endless.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/456204.html

I am so pleased that Dark Horse is putting out a new translation/packaging/etc. of Cardcaptor Sakura that I have been giving some serious thought to re-purchasing the entire series as it comes out (even though I already own the entire series). It's really exciting to me that a company cares about shoujo manga originally published about fifteen years ago.
(Okay, maybe they care more about the fact that CLAMP sells really well, and people will want to reread it after they finish xxxHolic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles.)

I really wish that an American manga company would do this for Sailor Moon - I have all 18 volumes, but they were made pretty shoddily, and many are falling apart.

La!

Unfortunately, it looks like they're giving Chobits the omnibus treatment, too. Chobits.....*shudder*

--Viz editor Pancha Diaz shares thoughts on Ooku, after it won the Tiptree Award.

--A site with neat Sailor Moon fanart! [Yes, I am still on my Sailor Moon kick. Expect a post on Season R in the near future.]

--Legally Blonde and How It is Awesome

--30 Rock Meta! Which explains some of the complicated feelings I also have toward 30 Rock. (The conclusion being....I love Liz Lemon! Most of the time.)

--Dear Manga, You are Broken. I'm not sure if I agree with *everything* here (for example, aren't manga prices in the U.S. similar to those in Japan? There is only so much that a publisher can do, although I agree that prices can be expensive. I am very grateful that the place I live has a pretty healthy used-book market that includes manga.
At any rate, it is a pretty inclusive summary of issues in the world of manga publishing, whether you are an outsider to the fandom or not.

I just made it through the first disc of Spice & Wolf from Netflix, which contains episodes 1-7.
I didn't expect to like this series because I was afraid it would be a bit moe.

However, it is so not. I love it so much!

A merchant and a wolf-god of the harvest travel together in a European-ish world. It is about economics and Autumn and what it means for people to lose faith. Also, apples.

I love the ending sequence. The lyrics are pretty non-sensical, but it makes me want to sing along: I want to dance with the peanut butterflies!

"Samurai Champloo - Official Opening - "Battlecry"" (Watch on YouTube)

For a more sensible preview, read

etrangere's write-up in this post.

Current Mood: content

x-posted in

halfamoon

Sailor Moon is a manga series created by Naoko Taekuchi. It ran from 1992 to 1997, and has spawned a 5-season anime series, three movies, a musical, and most recently a live-action retelling of the story.

Many people are familiar with the anime version of Sailor Moon, as it aired on Cartoon Network for a number of years.

What many people don't know is that the original manga version of Sailor Moon, crafted by Naoko Takeuchi, is a fantastic and mature manga series. In the English dub version of the story especially, many things are "dumbed down" from the original source material. For example, the homosexual relationship between Sailors Neptune and Uranus is erased in the English dub. Instead, they are referred to as "cousins."

Usagi Tsukino is a lazy middle school student who loves video games. One day, she finds a talking cat, who tells her that she is actually a champion of justice, Sailor Moon. Usagi is incredulous, but when her best friend is attacked, she does not hesitate to save her. Throughout the course of the series, Usagi finds other girls who are Sailor Senshi just like her. While fighting various incarnations of evil, they also deal with school, entrance exams, families, and boys.

Sailor Moon is one of few manga series to highlight a lesbian relationship without making it into a huge deal. Normally, for a manga or anime series to have a homosexual relationship, the story focuses exclusively on the relationship. In the case of Sailor Moon, the genre is very clearly "magical school girl," but Takeuchi allows her characters to interact naturally without detracting from the main plot.

Also, Takeuchi's art books sometimes contain slash-tastic drawings of her characters. She seems to love paring Sailors Mars and Venus together, with their arms around each other, etc. There are some examples of this in the icons below!

Art styles used by manga-ka (people who write/draw manga) are always evolving, but it is difficult to find consistent quality artwork from the mid-1990s. Takeuchi's artwork is a massive exception, and to this day, I think that this series' artwork is the most beautiful I've seen.
Also, Takeuchi makes adorably cute chibi versions of all her characters.

As for the

halfamoon angle, almost the entire main cast is female, as well as the supporting cast. Girls are everywhere, and they save each other and kick ass.

( 38 Icons! I apologize for not being very good at making icons. )

In the U.S., licenses have lapsed on both the anime series and on the manga series. The anime is still relatively easy to find on DVD, but the manga series is becoming increasingly rare. It was published by Mixx (which later became TokyoPop), but I would love to see a re-issuing here, much like they are currently releasing in Japan. Mixx did not do a very good job at binding the pages together. I own all 18 volumes, but many of them are falling apart!

Current Mood: productive

I haven't had much to say lately, because I've just been at work and reading lots of books.

Fooding
I baked cookies a few nights ago. They looked like they had been cooked too long, but I did it exactly as long as the recipe told me to, and they're supposed to be a "crispy" recipe. Also, they were really small. Still, Antoine and I thought that they tasted really, really good.

I also just made soup on a whim. I was going to boil some Asian dumplings, but the back of the box told me I could cut up vegetables and throw them in too, to make soup. "I can do that!" I thought, and I did! Onions, mushrooms, green onions, some spices, and some chili sauce. It turned out all right, I guess, but I think I'll try and find a soup recipe before I try again, :)

Why don't people tell patients about potential side effects? THAT'D BE GREAT, KTHX
While I was at my parents' house during break, my dad assured me that Prilosec is meant to be a short-term drug, and I had been taking it for about 6 months. He told me to stop taking it, and if I still had problems, I should see a doctor. So, I stopped taking it for about five days. Every day, I felt terrible, no matter what food I ate. It felt like I was constantly about to throw up, but not in my stomach - more in my chest and throat. Dad told me to start taking the Prilosec again and see a doctor ASAP.

So, that's what I did on Thursday. After explaining things to him, his theory is that the acne medication I had been taking since either high school or middle school (minocyclene) has the potential to chemically burn a person's esophagus in the long-term, and that that is what happened. Fortunately, a couple weeks before this meeting, my dermatologist had prescribed a different acne medication for me, as minocyclene was doing jack, and I've been very unhappy with my face lately!

So now, I have to take Prilosec for 2 months straight (which is scary to me, as both the doctor and my father have explained to me why taking Prilosec long-term is really bad for you!) to get rid of anything bad, and let everything settle down, and allow my body to adjust to the new acne medication. If the pain immediately starts again after I stop taking Prilosec, or while I'm still taking it, then I need to go to the doctor so that they can stick a long thingie down my throat and see if I have a stomach or esophagus ulcer. WTF ULCER. How do people even get ulcers? I don't know.

I don't get squeamish about blood or broken bones, but the thought of people sticking cameras down my throat makes me want to throw up. I asked the doctor if they could knock me out, and he said no, because they want my gag reflex in case something goes wrong. THAT MAKES ME FEEL SO MUCH BETTER.

Yay!
Anyway, the high today is 0 degrees, but Anime Club (well, hopefully, anyway! It better not be just me!) is going to put up some fliers on State Street, and then watch some anime. Hopefully I don't die in the cold.

Media Update
I hope to write more extensively about these things at a later date, but for now, an update on the things I've been watching and reading:
--Volume 1 of Ex Machina comic by Brian K. Vaughan = win, but based on first volumes alone, I prefer Y: The Last Man

--I read the Magic Knight Rayearth manga. I have to say, I wasn't very impressed. I don't think that the series does anything that Sailor Moon doesn't do better. Speaking of Sailor Moon, I'd really like to reread it sometime soon. Since I've been going on a manga binge, reading all kinds of stuff, I'd like to see how well it holds up. (Please note that the Sailor Moon manga is much better than the anime!).

--I burned through the second Song of the Lioness book by Tamora Pierce - the series is so fun! But, I'm kind of slogging through the second Westmark book by Lloyd Alexander, The Kestrel. I have yet to see any of the dealings with PTSD that everyone was raving about, so I hope the second half pwns the first half.

--Buffy and Angel have both been really, really good lately. I wouldn't have thought that vampire flashbacks would be so fun. Bethany, you might want to check out Angel, season 2 (or at least, the first two discs so far!). Lots of stuff about Darla and Angel's past. It's pretty cool.

That's right. Herein lies a list of everything (I think!) I read and watched over winter break. I guess there's not as much as I thought there was. Oh well. I'm in the midst of the novel Snow Crash right now, which is pretty awesome. Also, I'll be reading a crapload this semester for all of my awesome classes. Anyway, here we go:

( Things I Read )

( Things I Watched )