Sailor Moon

Did You Know?

• The series focuses on Usagi Tsukino, a middle school student in the Azabu-Jūban district of Tokyo, who learns from the talking cat Luna that she is a reincarnated princess from the Moon Kingdom.
• Other Guardians include Sailor Uranus, Sailor Neptune, Sailor Pluto, Sailor Saturn, and the Sailor Starlights.
• In 2020, ColourPop released a Sailor Moon-inspired makeup collection, and streetwear brand KITH released clothing for the 25th anniversary in the U.S.

Production

Naoko Takeuchi developed Sailor Moon from her earlier one-shot Codename: Sailor V, published on August 8, 1991, which featured Sailor Venus as the main protagonist. After working on the 1991 manga Miracle Girls, Takeuchi wanted to create a story about girls in outer space. Her editor, Fumio Osano, suggested adding the Sailor fuku. When Codename: Sailor V was proposed for anime adaptation by Toei Animation, Takeuchi reworked the concept so Sailor Venus became a team member. The resulting manga fused the magical girl genre with the Super Sentai series, which Takeuchi admired. Recurring motifs include astronomy, astrology, gemology, Greco-Roman mythology, Japanese elemental themes, teenage fashion, and schoolgirl antics. Codename: Sailor V continued as a parallel serial, recontextualized as Sailor Venus's origin story. Takeuchi said discussions with Kodansha originally planned a single story arc, developed a year before serialization began. After completing that arc, Toei and Kodansha asked her to continue, leading to four more arcs published alongside the anime's five seasons. The anime ran one or two months behind the manga, following it closely with some deviations. Takeuchi later noted that because Toei's production staff was mostly male, the anime had a slight male perspective. She originally planned to kill the protagonists, but Osano rejected this, saying the work was a shōjo manga. The anime killed and revived them, which Takeuchi resented not being able to do in her version. She initially intended the anime to last one season, but its popularity led Toei to request more episodes. Osano suggested including Usagi's future daughter, Chibiusa.

Media

Written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi, Sailor Moon was serialized in Nakayoshi from December 28, 1991, to February 3, 1997, with side-stories in RunRun. The 52 chapters were collected into 18 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha from July 6, 1992, to April 4, 1997. In 2003, the chapters were re-released as 12 shinzōban volumes titled Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, with new cover art and revised dialogue. Ten short stories were released in two volumes. In 2013, the manga was re-released in 10 kanzenban volumes for its 20th anniversary, featuring digitally remastered artwork, new covers, and color artwork from its Nakayoshi run; the short stories were republished in two volumes with shuffled order, and Codename: Sailor V was included. The manga was first licensed for English release by Mixx (later Tokyopop) in North America, serialized in MixxZine from 1997, then moved to a separate monthly comic for the first three arcs, while the fourth and fifth arcs appeared in Smile. Pages ran daily on America Online's Japanimation Station. The series was collected into eighteen graphic novel volumes published from December 1, 1998, to September 18, 2001. Tokyopop's license expired in May 2005, and its edition went out of print.

Reception

Sailor Moon is one of the most popular manga series of all time, with over one million tankōbon copies sold in Japan by the end of 1995. By its 20th anniversary in 2012, the manga had sold over 35 million copies in more than fifty countries. The franchise generated over $250 million per year in Japan by 1995. The manga won the Kodansha Manga Award in 1993 in the shōjo genre. The English adaptations of both the manga and anime became the first successful shōjo title in the United States. The 1992 anime first aired outside Japan in Spain and France in December 1993, later broadcasting in Russia, South Korea, the Philippines, China, Italy, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, and Hong Kong before North America. In the Philippines, the series helped its carrier network become the third-largest in the country. In 2001, the Sailor Moon manga was Tokyopop's best-selling property, outselling the next-best titles by at least 1.5 times. In May 1999, Sailor Moon Volume 3 was the best-selling comic book in the United States in Diamond Comic Distributors' Graphic Novel and Trade Paperback category. Academic Timothy J. Craig attributes the series' international success to its magical girl transformation, marketers' ability to connect audiences to Japanese characters, and a female superhero protagonist, still rare in 1990s global pop culture.

Cultural impact and legacy

Sailor Moon is often seen as the series that brought the magical girl genre back to life, inspiring shows like Magic Knight Rayearth, Wedding Peach, Saint Tail, Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, Cyber Team in Akihabara, Corrector Yui, and Pretty Cure. It was called the biggest breakthrough for English-dubbed anime up to 1995 and the high point of shōjo anime for younger kids. According to cultural anthropologist Rachel Thorn, after Sailor Moon, shōjo manga started showing up in regular bookstores instead of just fan-run comic shops, which helped more girls get into reading it. Librarian Gilles Poitras notes that a whole generation of anime fans were introduced to the medium through Sailor Moon in the 1990s, and these fans were both younger and more often female than earlier audiences. Historian Fred Patten says creator Naoko Takeuchi made the idea of a magical girl team based on Super Sentai popular, while Paul Gravett credits the series with reviving the magical girl genre. A reviewer from THEM Anime Reviews pointed out that the anime changed the genre because its heroine uses her powers to fight evil, not just for fun. The series has been compared to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and it influenced Winx Club, W.I.T.C.H., Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir, LoliRock, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Robot Chicken, Steven Universe, and Totally Spies!. Sailor Moon is linked to feminist and girl power movements, empowering its female audience through the credible, charismatic, and independent Sailor Guardians, who blend traditional feminine traits with the typically masculine role of being strong, aggressive fighters.