Don’t feel bad, Mina-P! We all have weak points…
As odd as I’m sure it sounds, this is actually an article I’ve wanted to write about for a long time. Quite simply, it combines two of my favorite activities: talking about Japanese and looking at the minutia of the world of Sailor Moon.
If you’ve got a moment, why not join along as I throw out a possible theory as to why Minako seems to occasionally struggle with the intricacies of the Japanese language.
Not even pretending to study
Say what you will about Usagi’s lack of interest in educational pursuits, but despite her rather… questionable scores in her scholastic pursuits, at the very least we should give credit where credit’s due: she is portrayed in the anime quite often reading comics, magazines, or other materials. All that hard work (?) must be paying off, because her Japanese — as in, language arts,1 or the study of a national native language — scores are her highest.2
In honor of Usagi’s uncharacteristic pursuit of language arts, I’m going to take you on a tour of Usagi’s room, and we’ll look at some of the magazines she seems to enjoy reading as well as their real-life counterparts.
Let’s get started!
Sailor Jupiter
If I were to describe Makoto to someone who had never heard of Sailor Moon, it would probably be “feminine tomboy.” That’s one of the things that I really liked about her.
While it would have been all too easy to have gone for the easy gag and made Makoto an out-and-out tomboy with a feminine side that she was ashamed to admit, Makoto owned both of the two sides of her personality, being both proud of her strength as well as proud of her delicate touch.
Today, I’ll be taking a look in how Makoto – and, in particular, Sailor Jupiter – differed in the anime and manga. Why don’t you come along?
Okay, whose fault is it??
I know that I’ve talked at length about how Rei was portrayed quite differently in the anime and manga, and I’m sure at some point you might be wondering when the commentary on this issue will end.
Well, depending on your opinion of the issue, I have some good or bad news for you — today is not that day.
That’s right! We’ll be looking at an exclusive interview done in the November 1992 issue of Animage1 between the magazine’s editorial staff, Rei’s voice actress, and the top production crew for the Sailor Moon anime.
Come for the trivia, stay for the drama!
Setsuna’s back story confuses even herself
Considering how I constantly talk about how Setsuna simply serves as a third wheel to Haruka and Michiru, it may comes as something of a surprise that she’s one of my favorite characters… in theory. The idea of a single Sailor Soldier surviving all the way from(and possibly prior to?) the Silver Millennium is a fascinating concept — even more so when you think about the emotional hardship she must have gone through living all on her own for centuries at a time.
Sadly, in stark contrast with this vast amount of potential her character had, neither the anime nor manga did much with Setsuna. And what they did do didn’t even make sense.
Today, we’re going to talk about how utterly non-sensical Setsuna’s university education is.
No offense to any 42 year old readers
That’s right, dear readers! According to the original story as told in the Sailor Moon manga and anime, Usagi would be turning 42 on June 30, 2019.1 Hard to believe that our favorite sailor-suited soldier of love and justice would now be entering her fourth decade of life, isn’t it? While we may know her as a young and energetic junior high school student, she would now have been out of school longer than she ever spent in school.
Due to all of the odd time traveling mechanics and the start of Crystal Tokyo, it’s a bit harder to say anything about ChibiUsa. However, assuming that – like we have to do with Usagi – ChibiUsa was born in a normal universe, she would be turning around 18 years old today.2
In honor of the two birthday girls, I’ve selected five articles each about Usagi and ChibiUsa that may be of interest to you. Articles are in no particular order.
If you have any questions or suggestions for future articles, I’d love to hear from you!
Sailor Pluto looks a little… hmm.
Take a look at any lineup of the Sailor Soldiers and you’ll undoubtedly notice that, well… Setsuna – Sailor Pluto – tends to stand out just a bit from the other members of the Sailor Team. But just why is that?
One of the theories I’ve seen thrown around a lot is that Sailor Pluto isn’t Japanese, and that is why she differs in appearance from the rest of the cast. Well, today we’ll take a look at this question and more, and see what Ms. Takeuchi and the world of Sailor Moon can tell us about the Sailor Soldier of Time!