Sailor Moon!
Mar. 22nd, 2015 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrSo I finally got through all 47 episodes of season 1/the original anime. And it was pretty great, I can definitely see why it's a classic. The first twenty episodes or so are SUPER DULL, lots of silly repetitive plots, but then things pick up and by the end I was on the edge of my seat.
The show is all about the power of girls and love. I really enjoyed the "don't underestimate girls or put down their interests" message, as well as the way it is ALWAYS the girls saving the day. Unfortunately "love" explicitly means romantic love, and the forms that love takes are off putting. Lots of love at first sight, "I didn't like him but then he sacrificed himself to save me so now I love him", "the important thing is not to lose hope, even if he tries to kill you or has a girlfriend" etc. And all girls care about makeup, weddings, not being fat etc. (The fatphobia is pretty awful)
This leads to the final episode, where Usagi (the main character) has lost hope, but then thinks back on inspiring things her friends said...and they are all about their feelings for boys. But the scene is still explicitly about their support and friendship helping her be strong.
The romance between Usagi and Mamoru is central to the narrative and it wasn't TERRIBLE but I would have enjoyed the show more if I'd been sold on it better. He's a pretty great subversion of gendered love interest tropes though, while he does sweep in to help at key moments he mostly offers emotional support and gets imperiled.
The overall narrative is surprisingly bittersweet and affecting, lots of sweeping epic Romantic fantasy. Maybe it's the translation but it felt like there were bits of exposition missing, despite the slow pace, and the worldbuilding makes NO SENSE. When the show started with a talking cat saying she had come from the Moon to search for their lost princess I hoped it would make more sense in the end but nope. I had the mistaken impression that the end was SUPER tragic but it's overall hopeful and happy, just with bittersweet elements.
I knew there was canon same sex relationships and subtext eventually, but was not expecting the two gay villains to be quite that gay. They are awful to EVERYONE ELSE and things do not end well for them, but their relationship is actually pretty sweet and supportive in a melodramatic seme/uke sort of way.
I've watched the first episode of season 2/Sailor Moon R and the villains are another couple, but much less functional, and also pretending to be brother and sister. And lo, this season was directed by Ikuhara, lol. (He went from Sailor Moon to creating Revolutionary Girl Utena)
It's interesting watching a Magical Girls Show from before the genre became so well established. It has it's own internal repeated tropes (does it ever /o\) but feels less like it's either fulfilling or subverting the established magical girl tropes and more like it's just...doing what it feels like (which involves some fulfillment and subversion of more general gendered tropes). And it's definitely not moe, it hits some of the same buttons but the girls aren't Types Of Girls Dudes Like being Hardworking and Sad. As much as the girl's constant obsession with boys can be wearying it is at least a change from the niggling awareness that the only reason there's no boys in moe is so that the assumed male viewer can insert themselves, and they do express specific and determined preferences for boys THEY like.
And Usagi is definitely not anyone's ideal girlfriend haha. She's a good person deep down but also lazy, short sighted, shallow, and whiny. I can't think of many other female main characters who get to be quite so awful but are still the hero in the end. And she and the others feel like real 14 year old girls, the show captures that moment between childhood and adulthood where you have to learn to see beyond yourself.
Icon chosen because the show reminds me of Buffy in a lot of ways.
The show is all about the power of girls and love. I really enjoyed the "don't underestimate girls or put down their interests" message, as well as the way it is ALWAYS the girls saving the day. Unfortunately "love" explicitly means romantic love, and the forms that love takes are off putting. Lots of love at first sight, "I didn't like him but then he sacrificed himself to save me so now I love him", "the important thing is not to lose hope, even if he tries to kill you or has a girlfriend" etc. And all girls care about makeup, weddings, not being fat etc. (The fatphobia is pretty awful)
This leads to the final episode, where Usagi (the main character) has lost hope, but then thinks back on inspiring things her friends said...and they are all about their feelings for boys. But the scene is still explicitly about their support and friendship helping her be strong.
The romance between Usagi and Mamoru is central to the narrative and it wasn't TERRIBLE but I would have enjoyed the show more if I'd been sold on it better. He's a pretty great subversion of gendered love interest tropes though, while he does sweep in to help at key moments he mostly offers emotional support and gets imperiled.
The overall narrative is surprisingly bittersweet and affecting, lots of sweeping epic Romantic fantasy. Maybe it's the translation but it felt like there were bits of exposition missing, despite the slow pace, and the worldbuilding makes NO SENSE. When the show started with a talking cat saying she had come from the Moon to search for their lost princess I hoped it would make more sense in the end but nope. I had the mistaken impression that the end was SUPER tragic but it's overall hopeful and happy, just with bittersweet elements.
I knew there was canon same sex relationships and subtext eventually, but was not expecting the two gay villains to be quite that gay. They are awful to EVERYONE ELSE and things do not end well for them, but their relationship is actually pretty sweet and supportive in a melodramatic seme/uke sort of way.
I've watched the first episode of season 2/Sailor Moon R and the villains are another couple, but much less functional, and also pretending to be brother and sister. And lo, this season was directed by Ikuhara, lol. (He went from Sailor Moon to creating Revolutionary Girl Utena)
It's interesting watching a Magical Girls Show from before the genre became so well established. It has it's own internal repeated tropes (does it ever /o\) but feels less like it's either fulfilling or subverting the established magical girl tropes and more like it's just...doing what it feels like (which involves some fulfillment and subversion of more general gendered tropes). And it's definitely not moe, it hits some of the same buttons but the girls aren't Types Of Girls Dudes Like being Hardworking and Sad. As much as the girl's constant obsession with boys can be wearying it is at least a change from the niggling awareness that the only reason there's no boys in moe is so that the assumed male viewer can insert themselves, and they do express specific and determined preferences for boys THEY like.
And Usagi is definitely not anyone's ideal girlfriend haha. She's a good person deep down but also lazy, short sighted, shallow, and whiny. I can't think of many other female main characters who get to be quite so awful but are still the hero in the end. And she and the others feel like real 14 year old girls, the show captures that moment between childhood and adulthood where you have to learn to see beyond yourself.
Icon chosen because the show reminds me of Buffy in a lot of ways.
