[Header art from the LaserDisc releases]
Jupiter and Venus's absence
Welcome back to Mooniversity, our monthly look at all things Sailor Moon. Today we are revisiting the first season of the anime itself, simply named Sailor Moon, which aired in Japan from March 7, 1992, to February 27, 1993. Offering an expanded, monster-of-the-week take on the initial ‘Dark Kingdom’ arc of the manga, it remains, at 46 episodes, the longest season of any Sailor Moon anime, and good lord does it feel that way, but we’ll come back to that in a minute, because we need to go over the basics of the cartoon first, as no discussion of it would be complete without the theme song and transformation sequences.
Said theme, “Moonlight Densetsu” (lit. “Moonlight Legend”), by lyricist Kanako Oda, and composer Tetsuya Komoro, was lifted from Chieko Baisho’s 1965 cha-cha song “Sayonara wa Dance no Ato ni” (lit. “Goodbye After the Dance”), but it’s a thoroughly more haunting affair: the opening bars, especially with the bell chimes and strings at the start, sound almost sinister, hinting at the darker revelations and events that will unfold in this otherwise comedic series. While the song is undeniably a sugar rush, there’s enough melancholy in its lyrics (which are about Usagi’s unconscious longing for her past lover) and melody to feel dramatic enough for, say, an American version with more generic verses.
And those influential transformation sequences? As dazzling and colorful as they are, they’re awkward to watch as an adult, as it’s impossible to ignore the outlines of the Sailor Guardians’ naked bodies (which, for the record, were censored in the ’90s dub.) They’re admittedly nowhere as gratuitous or strange as the stuff you might see in other anime with girl protagonists, but they’re still a reminder that Japan is another country, with different standards and attitudes from the West. It’s just as well these sequences were padding, designed in conjunction with the stock footage of special attacks to fill up an episode’s runtime (and save the animators time), so you can simply do laundry while they happen.
Speaking of animation, when I was a kid, I always wondered if Sailor Moon was produced in the late ’80s, because it certainly looked older than the other “new” cartoons I watched at the time. While I wasn’t far off the mark, it turns out a major reason for this is how simple the coloring generally was: in most episodes, characters often only have one tone per body part, ie. their skin, hair etc., and the watercolor backgrounds feel especially faded and white compared to those in later seasons.
One of the most fun parts of rewatching the series is telling which animation directors oversaw each episode from the shape and size of characters’ eyes, and lower faces: especially notable are Masahiro Andō, whose faces were very round and babylike, and Taichi/Akira Nakamura, whose episodes featured strikingly narrow heads. It’s jarring at times to start an episode of Sailor Moon without the iconically beautiful look, but then that is what it took to get the show to air weekly.
As an adaptation, the season gets off to a reasonable start, spreading the events of the manga’s first three chapters across the first 13 episodes (or cour, as these production blocks are known in Japan.) It might seem a bit much having Usagi play solo for seven episodes, but there’s surprisingly enough to explore with her classmates and family (including the question of how she persuaded her parents to adopt Luna), before the introduction of Mercury and Mars. Things go off the rails in the second cour, which centers on the addition of a doomed love affair between Usagi’s best friend, Naru, and Beryl’s second general, Nephrite, who ultimately gives his life to protect her from Zoisite and Kunzite’s power plays.
There’s nothing wrong with this development by itself, in fact it becomes quite moving, but as the season continues, and it’s all but forgotten about, it becomes blatantly clear it was only filler. Jupiter’s not introduced until the second-to-last part of this cour, and ironically Naoko Takeuchi would later hint she and Nephrite were lovers in the past. Makoto’s delayed arrival means it’s no surprise I was instantly smitten with her as a child: I must’ve been desperate for the show to shake up the dynamic between Usagi, Ami and Rei. (It should be noted the DIC dub featured Jupiter and Venus in the opening credits from the start, so I was very much like Milhouse wanting to get to the fireworks factory with those two.)
Continued belowRei herself is the subject of another added love story or two, in contrast to her celibate comics counterpart, with her dating Mamoru Chiba during the period where Usagi thinks he’s a stuck-up jerk. The expanded canvas to tell the story also means Rei’s obnoxiousness towards Usagi occurs much more regularly, turning them into a classic anime rivalry ala Dragon Ball Z‘s Goku and Vegeta. A lot of fans object to the change in Rei’s characterization on the grounds it makes her unlikable, but it pays off (at least in this season) for reasons I’ll go into now.
Unlike the manga, where the Inner Guardians pass out sacrificing themselves to resurrect Usagi, they die in pretty brutal and horrifying ways protecting our hero when she makes her way to Beryl’s lair in the penultimate episode. As an adult, I was startled and saddened by the sight of the girls getting maimed, screaming their heads off dying to protect their princess in the desolation of the Arctic, so I can only imagine how bleak this was for Japanese kids nearly 30 years ago — no wonder the DIC dub recut and reedited the last two episodes (which were combined into one) to avoid any implication that the Guardians had died. Rei is the last one to give her life, proving deep down, she is perhaps Usagi’s most steadfast friend.
See you next month for Sailor Moon R.
