POP REVIEW: Sailor Moon

Hello everyone, this is my really first review to my Otaku*Pop Blog and I haven’t been updating my Blog for quite a while now. Even though there’s not much updates going on the updates and all that, yet, I felt like doing something important. So instead, I’ll go ahead and start a review for this blog. This week’s POP Review is…

That’s right folks, one of my first and most favorite Anime in the History: Sailor Moon. Now, I know this site is about Anime and all, but I don’t always talk about Anime a lot. I usually watched Cartoons as well, yet some cartoons that I really like are Anime-influence taste to it. But let’s not talk about that and let’s move on to Sailor Moon. Due to the fact that this show has a bunch seasons, I will review the first season since the series has like five seasons. The rest of the reviews of this series will appear in the future.

HISTORY
Sailor Moon was first created by Naoko Takeuchi when she was in the Manga publishing company known as Kodansha. Before Sailor Moon appeared, she created the Manga called Codename: Sailor V. As the comic became popular, she decided to add more characters from outer space, and her editor asked her to put them in the sailor fuku. When Sailor V was proposed for adaptation into an anime, the concept was modified by Takeuchi so that Sailor V herself became only one member of a team. The resulting manga series merged elements of the popular magical girl genre and the Super Sentai Series which Takeuchi admired, making Sailor Moon one of the first series ever to combine the two. Thus the popularity of Sailor Moon was born!

WHEN MANGA TURNS INTO ANIME
As the Sailor Moon manga became popular, TV Asahi, Toei Agency and Toei Animation, started airing only a month after the first issue of the manga was published. With 200 episodes airing from March 1992 to February 1997 on TV Asahi, Sailor Moon is one of the longest magical girl anime series. Although, the show did came worldwide, The English adaptations of both the manga and anime series became the first successful shōjo title in the United States. The anime adaptation of Sailor Moon attempted to capitalize on the success of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The English-language anime has also served as a profound introduction of anime to mainstream entertainment around the world. The entire manga series has also been translated and released in English-speaking countries. After the bidding war between Toon Makers and DiC Entertainment (Now known as Cookie Jar Entertainment), DiC acquired the rights to the first 72 episodes of Sailor Moon, consisting of the entire first series and two-thirds of Sailor Moon R, thus leading the controversies to the fans.

THE WATCH HISTORY
When I first watched Sailor Moon, I was like: “OH COOL!! THIS LOOKS AMAZING!” I was like 6 or 7 years old when I first watched it on TV and I really don’t understand the plot of the series. When I saw a VHS at Walmart, I told Mom and said “HEY MOM, CAN I GET THIS?” And she said sure. It was the “A Moon Star Was Born” one, the really first episode of Sailor Moon. So I set my VHS on the machine, hit play, then sit down on the couch, and then watch the two episodes: One is “A Moon Star Is Born” and “Talk Radio”, which is funny because every time I see “A Moon Star Is Born” title, I though “A Moon Star Is Boring”. Even though the English titles are weird, but this is pretty bizarre when I read the title episodes.

THE STORY
The story so far took place 1,000 years ago (Probably around the 10th Century) when people lived in the Earth’s moon. There’s a legendary kingdom called the Silver Millennium (the Moon Kingdom in the English Dub), located in the Sea of Serenity on the Moon; which take place on the Golden Age era. Silver Millennium was inhabited by beings with very long lifespans, whose mission was to help Earth people to progress. The princess of the Moon, Princess Serenity (Serena in the English Dub), was in love with Prince Endymion (Darien in the English Dub) of the Earth. However, the people of Earth were corrupted by Queen Metalia and encouraged to hate and fear the people of the Moon. Queen Beryl led the invasion and destruction of the Moon Kingdom, killing all who were in the way, including Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion. Queen Serenity used the Silver Crystal to defeat the enemies, but using so much power weakened her greatly. Seeing that her kingdom was destroyed and her daughter killed, she used the last of her power to send the prince, the princess, her guardians, and her advisers, the cats Luna and Artemis, to the future on Earth.

As the years past, a familiar schoolgirl, name Serena Tsukino is always late for school and gets into trouble and ends with with later characters of the show: Amy Mizuno (Sailor Mercury), Rei Hino (Sailor Mars), Lita Kino (Sailor Jupiter), and later Mina Aino (Sailor Venus). As the mooncats Luna and Artemis awakening the Inner Scouts, they must find Queen Beryl to defeat her. Despite her attempts and her generals’ work, Beryl kept losing to the Senshi, but to grand her prize is to get Tuxedo Mask (who is actually Darien later in the series). To make this long story short: The Sailor Scouts found the enemy’s spot but was ambushed by Kunzite, Sailor Moon killed him, Queen Beryl sent the Doom and Gloom Girls (wait, what?) to kill, Sailor Scouts went to the North Pole and got killed (although, this part was cut out in the English version), Sailor Moon was the last one to be survived and Beryl brought Sailor Moon into her throne room; facing to fight with Prince Endymion. However, Sailor Moon managed to free Endymion from his brainwashing, and Beryl’s attempt to kill the Senshi backfired, leaving Endymion dead and her mortally wounded. Desperate to get help, Beryl went to Metalia to get more power, only to be absorbed by Metalia to form the entity called Super Beryl. As she started to destroy the world, she was confronted again by Sailor Moon, who transformed into Princess Serenity and did battle with her. At first, Super Beryl seemed to be winning because Princess Serenity was uncertain about using the Silver Crystal’s power. However, after she thought of her friends, their spirits appeared to help her in the battle, and Princess Serenity created an attack so powerful that it destroyed Super Beryl, cleansed the Earth, and granted her last wish: for the Senshi to become normal people. After that, Queen Beryl was no more. (wait, didn’t I say “Long Story Short?”)

THE REVIEW
The one thing I really like about this series is that the story plot is pretty interesting and educational to those who are know about the Planets of the Outer Space. This series has the guts to mixed the storylines between the fairytale and science fiction together and turn it into a magical action series, thus gave birth to action-style for girls in the North American and European regions. Sadly, there are a few Episodes that did not air in the North American region, which is probably due to the inappropriate content in some Episodes, which is the reason why DiC did not wanted to air these type of Episodes. Yet, there are lots of Episodes have to be cut by several minutes to make room for more commercials, to censor plot points or visuals deemed inappropriate for children, and to allow the insertion of brief “educational” segments called “Sailor Says” at the end of each episode. But most importantly, Sailor Moon introduced the western cultures to the Japanese culture and it is one of the most recognized manga and anime products to date.♥

Rating: 9.5/10 – Really good story plots, the animation was terrific, and the voice acting was 80% perfect!