T5W#343-Top 5 Ways Sailor Moon has Influenced Magical Girls (and Anime) Over the Years

You all know her theme song (from the original English Dub anyway), “Fighting Evil by moonlight.  Winning Love by daylight.  Never running from a real fight, she is the one named Sailor Moon.”  This past Monday, Naoko Takeuchi’s legendary Anime celebrated it’s 30^th Anniversary and man what a ride it has been for Usagi Tsukino and the Sailor Senshi.  One Five Season/200 Episode TV Series, 3 Movies, a Reboot with a film continuation, and surely there’s more to come down the line.  Sailor Moon has stood the test of time in a number of ways.  While we’ll be delving more into that later this summer (could this be an unofficial Extended Summer Series Announcement?), today I wanted to celebrate the Princess of the Moon Kingdom by counting down the Top 5 Ways Sailor Moon has Influenced Magical Girls (and Anime) Over the Years.  Girl was a trendsetter, same with her magical companions.  And they deserve the attention this week.

 
#5-Style

You’ve seen them replicated on many Anime and they’ve been cosplayed by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Cosplayers.  No one can deny that Sailor Moon and the Sailor Senshi are some of the hottest characters in Anime, highlighted by style that has been matched but rarely surpassed.  The Sailor Fuku’s, the short skirts, tiara’s gloves and variety of cute shoes, if these girls were going to kick your ass, they were going to look good doing so.  You could call their outfits kind of basic but this basic helped inspire the wardrobes for a bunch of Magical Girls.  Just look at Sakura Kinomoto’s endless supply of outfits in Cardcaptor Sakura or how excited Madoka Kaname and her friends were to get their own custom outfits suited to their personalities in Madoka Magica.  Fighting the forces of darkness is dangerous stuff…doesn’t mean style should be ignored in favor of fear.
 

#4-You Don’t Have to Fight Evil Alone

While you had specially powered fighting teams in the past like the Voltron Force or Ronin Warriors, Sailor Moon was one of the first times that the Magical Girl on the scene had back up.  At first, Usagi had only Rei, Ami, Mako and Minako to fight alongside her.  As the series progressed, the Outer Senshi, Sailor Starlites and even Usagi’s future daughter joined the fray and made their own marks.  Magic Knight Rayearth, Pretty Cure, Madoka Magica, each of these shows and more hardly ever had their main protagonist fighting alone if ever at all.  Sailor Moon showed that this was a team sport and most of the time it was through teamwork (and friendship) that evil was vanquished in the end.

 
#3-LGBTQ Rep

One of the biggest ways Sailor Moon remains an all time trendsetter is thanks to its passionate and unrelenting focus on same sex couples throughout the series.  Naturally, there are the Queens of the Series: Haruka and Michuru aka Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, who’s deep and powerful bond could never be fully hidden behind a mountain of censorship in the early 2000s.  Plus, their romance is so grand it kind of overshadows other characters who had a same sex relationship, such as two of Queen Beryls Four Kings: Zoisite and Kunzite.  Just because most of the main focus of the romantic plot was on Usagi and Mamoru didn’t mean others couldn’t have their time or have to be in love with someone of the opposite sex. 

 
#2-From Crybaby to Heroine (who can still occasionally cry)

At first glance, Usagi Tsukino seems like the last choice to be a powerful superheroine.  She’s a slacker, focuses on food, boys and video games more than getting good grades.  Oh and she cries…like a lot…it doesn’t take much.  Anyway, point is, yeah, Usagi doesn’t start of as a total bad ass as Sailor Moon.  The series has her continue to grow and grow and while many of her mannerisms carry on throughout the entire series, Usagi does show signs of maturity in her role as the Pretty Guardian in a Sailor Suit.  Not being able to do much fighting or showing much bravery is a very honest beginning for Sailor Moon, not everyone has to be experienced as soon as they get their powers.  Everyone starts somewhere and Usagi showed that with time, practice and a ton of patience, anyone can rise to occasion and stare down Evil like a true bad ass.

 
#1-Girls Are Here and Here to Stay

When most people think about Anime, their mind goes right to the mind bending and bloody action of Dragon Ball Z or Demon Slayer, a bunch of loud boys running around beating each other to a pulp.  Sailor Moon stepped in at the right time during the big Anime Boom in the US in the 1990’s and gave girls a gateway into Anime.  No longer was it just about Goku going Super Saiyan and Giant Robots causing havoc.  Thanks to Usagi and the Senshi stepping in and proudly proclaiming their intentions to kick ass and save the day, Anime was no longer just for the boys…it was for the girls too.  It was a perfect opening for plenty of shows with female protagonists and female centric casts to come into the spotlight such as Revolutionary Girl Utena.  Even more modern shows like Psycho Pass are carried by a strong female protagonist and while Tanjiro might be getting even deadlier with his sword, we both know who the true protector is in Demon Slayer: his cute and dangerous Himouto, Nezuko.  All of this Girl Power in Anime became possible thanks to one girl declaring “In the name of the Moon, I’ll punish you.”