And she still hates when Tuxedo Mask saves the day. She still freaks out whenever Usagi and Mamoru kiss but you can tell the romance is growing on her. If she has one sartorial criticism it is that she thinks Usagi should try wearing pants in the winter months. Vivian is older now and there’s less tension in the room when the animation lingers on a bodice or a short skirt.
Or at the very least confusing in an emotionally welcome way. Squint at Sailor Moon and it feels radical. The four evil henchmen who serve the villainous Queen Beryl in season one are guys with long flowing hair, earrings, and a kind of delicacy of bearing that scrambles expected tropes of threatening masculinity.Ĭompare this to your average Pixar homily, your run of the mill Nickelodeon sitcom. Sailor Moon is studded with androgyny and instances of queer love-which were sanitized in the U.S. That all strikes me as close enough to lived reality that I can forgive the idealized bodies and gender cliches. Usagi is bad at math, obsessively in love with a boy named Mamoru Chiba (who appears as the mysterious Tuxedo Mask to help get her out of peril-this always elicits a groan from Viv), and just generally exists in an anarchic landscape of peer pressure, extreme fashion choices, and sexualized villains. I also relished the feeling of a series that offers Vivian no clear or reassuring messages about how to grow up. My wife, seeing Usagi’s peekaboo transformation for the first time, seeing Vivian observe it with a fixed expression that could best be described as awe, was like, no.
In front of a crescent moon she strikes a flattering limbs-akimbo pose (that Vivian and I have strained to imitate in the living room). Nail polish appears, as does a jeweled tiara that doubles as a weapon. When Usagi transforms into Sailor Moon, declaring her battle cry, “Moon Prism Power, Make Up!” her clothes momentarily disappear, and she is silhouetted in nothing but light, before she’s wrapped in a sailor getup with an extremely short hemline. Sailor Moon has been called feminist and I am not here to debate the merits of that claim, only to celebrate the show’s bewildering contradictions.
And I was entranced, by the spare modernist cityscapes, the period specific Tokyo fashion and the savagery of the monsters, but more importantly, and I guess this is where it gets tricky, by the delightfully confusing empowerment messages.
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