Mod for the 'Moonlight Legends' Discord server, a community for anyone and everyone who’s interested in Sailor Moon fanfiction, fan art, cosplay, and other fanworks. Share your work or others' or just hang out for fun. DM me if you want to join.
The above are links to my Sailor Moon Anniversary Anthology, marking various anniversaries in the Sailor Moon universe between 2021-2022.
This is a huge ongoing project and I’d not have made it as far as I have without the continuing help and support from the Moonlight Legends Discord community.
The ML discord server is a community for anyone and everyone who’s interested in Sailor Moon fanworks.
There’re sections devoted to fanfiction, fan art, cosplay, etc.
Not only can you hang out with fellow fan creators and discover their works, but you can also share your own works and ask for feedback, help or even request collaborators for anything you are working on. This includes NSFW content too!
If you would like to join it, try following this link or DM me to receive an invite. All are welcome.
Please check it out and spread the word!
The above artwork was posted with the permission of the original artist Lin Lamont
ALSO I have made a Google Sheet with many of the most common tags folks might want to use when posting something about Sailor Moon on tumblr or Ao3. Feel free to use it at your own leisure and contact me to correct errors or make changes/additions.:
I hope that link works (let me know if it doesn't).
I got something of potential interest.
I paid someone to translate the back covers of the Laser Discs for Sailor Moon (1992) along with the R, S, SuperS movies, Ami's First Love Theatrical Short and the Super S Special.
In essence these are the original and official disc and episode Summaries and chapter headings for the Laser Discs, which were (to my knowledge) the first ever complete home release of Sailor Moon.
It still feels surreal to say this but I met Miho Shimogasa at Casale Comics a few weeks ago. The convention was offering a meet and greet package that my friend Pietro and I immediately jumped on. I assumed it was going to be a simple "oh, nice to meet you" with a photo op and autograph but it was so much more than that.
We met with Shimogasa-sensei, her assistant and the interpreter in a private room.
Shimogasa-sensei shared original production sketches and animation cels from Sailor Moon and Cutey Honey Flash with us. We took turns passing them around. To say they were breathtaking is an understatement. Her lines were so clean and precise, it nearly brought tears to our eyes. The cels she owned also had their original backgrounds and were in pristine condition.
Shimogasa-sensei was incredibly sweet, sharing little tidbits and answering our questions while doing autographs. My Japanese isn't the best but it really came through during our conversations! At one point I was even translating for my friend! I told her that I worked on most of the official US releases for Cutie Honey and said that unfortunately Cutey Honey Flash has yet to come over. I was sure to tell her that fans do want it and they especially love her designs. I also gifted her one of my Bancho Honey stickers and she loved it. She kept it stored with her original cel art! I was extremely honored.
Each person at the meet and greet received a mini sketch of their choice plus three autographs. Pretty much everyone requested Sailor Moon characters. I asked Shimogasa-sensei to draw Misty Honey and she got nervous. I felt so bad! She had to look at my Cutey Honey F laserdisc for reference. It came out so adorable! (see above)
Shimogasa-sensei shared a lot of interesting facts:
Misty Honey was modeled after Violence Jack. Or rather, his female form that is known by fans as "Lady Violence Jack." I can't believe I never knew this! My mind was blown.
Shingo Araki did uncredited work on the Cutey Honey Flash opening. Another thing that completely blew my mind! She wasn't sure which parts he worked on.
Shimogasa-sensei is quite proud of her designs for Panther Zora and Sister Jill because they were so close to Go Nagai's style. The Cutey Honey Flash volume 9 laserdisc (pictured above) is her favorite for that very same reason.
While this is a well known fact, she did mention that Scud Panther was modeled after Marquis Janus from Great Mazinger. She also confirmed that Scud Panther was partially inspired by Drill Claw from the original Cutie Honey.
Although she designed all the new outfits in Sailor Moon episode 181, she did not pick out the colors. Shimogasa-sensei didn't seem to know who did. This surprised me!
I asked about these three girls that show up in Sailor Moon episode 187:
I said that they reminded me of Honey, Candy (Candy Candy) and Miki Makimura (Devilman). I asked if this was just a coincidence and she laughed saying "no, it wasn't." How cute!
We got to chat a lot during the convention, I showed off my collection and she was especially surprised to see I owned a copy of a Cutey Honey Flash storyboard. Her reaction was "why do you have this?", which made me sweat. I clarified that I simply had a copy, not the original. At one point she asked if I had any pets and I showed her a photo of Myanmar with my boyfriend. She agreed that they looked alike. Haha.
Before we parted ways, she gifted Pietro and I bottles of green tea. She held my hand and said "I hope we meet again." I nearly cried!
For a while I wondered where this production drawing was from, given Mimete never wore that outfit in any episode. I eventually realized where it was from (A House Filled with Evil Presence: The Beautiful Hotaru's Secret). But instead of wearing the outfit in the settei, Mimete is just wearing her regular undercover outfit.
Ngl I would have loved to see her in more outfits. I'm really curious to what this outfit specifically looked like in its integrality.
Interesting detail in that scene, before the screen focused on Mimete, we do see her in the background, but she isn't wearing her head scarf. Perhaps she was originally drawn to be wearing the other outfit, but it was changed mid-episode.
The blonde's eyes were wide with horror and confusion at the disturbing images she'd just witnessed. She had thought the video tape was a marathon of her favourite anime series. But not only had the tape been live action, the images on it had also been a far cry from entertaining. On the contrary, they'd been nothing short of disturbing. And yet, not as disturbing as the phone call that had shortly followed.
"Seven Days," whispered the haunting voice over the line.
One week later the TV stood quiet and blank in the corner of the living room. Then it turned itself on.
The screen displayed a grainy black and white image of a well. From it arose a soaking girl with long lack hair that completely obscured her face.
Slowly, she marched towards the camera. Then, when her visage consumed the screen… she began to crawl out of it.
The living room floor was suddenly soaked from the girl's sopping wet hair and nightgown, her filthy, chalk white, fingers gripping the carpet beneath the TV as she advanced on all fours. With an unnatural jerking motion, she got to her feet, stood straight and looked upon the face of her latest victim. Only… they weren't there.
Another blonde was though. Two in fact, alongside three other young women.
"Lady, you're really gonna regret that phone call," said Sailor Moon.
Here is a theory for you. I think a lot of Moonies have wondered just why Queen Serenity never got reincarnated when everyone else did.
Theres all sorts of theories out there about this, one of the more popular being that she did and she is Ikuko.
But here is one I thought of today that, to my knowledge, has never been considered before.
What if it was a matter of guilt?
What if she observed a) Her failure to recognise or stop Metalia's rise b) Her failure to prevent Beryl and Metalia bewitching the people of Earth into rebellion c) Her failure to protect the Moon Kingdom from being obliterated d) Her failure to save the lives of her subjects e) Her failure as a mother to protect her daughter f) Her failure to build a kingdom wherein her daughter and the Sailor Senshi could love who they wanted
And she was just like 'I fucked up. I don't deserve a second chance at this.'
I think this theory neatly addresses why she didn't get the respawn when Usagi and so many other people did, why she wanted Usagi and the others to be normal people on Earth and perhaps even speaks to the theme of lonliness that underlines so much of Sailor Moon.
I am honestly just exhausted with how the Sailor Moon fandom so often bashes the original anime, in particular when they do so by presuming bigotry of any kind on the part of the staff members.
Sure, show me a quote or an interview where they definitively say something and I will listen with an open mind.
But why does this fandom presume that, for example, AnimeRei’s interest in men was obviously changed from the MangaRei’s more negative attitude because of sexism?
Or that Usagi being naked in the last episode whilst Mamoru was in his Endymion armour was again rooted in sexism?
Or that old favourite that has now become oh so trendy again thanks to Cosmos, that the Starlights were physically male in the anime (as opposed to simply dressing as men and pretending to be men) because the anime staff were being homophobic. More specifically, that this change was implemented so that the UsagixSeiya relationship was ‘less gay’.
I think you mean well by this post. I really do, but your main point is not very well constructed.
I do complain sometimes of the og anime being a bit hetero normative, but I never did blame it on the people working on the show (or never saw anyone do it either), but rather instead consider and accept that times have changed.
The 90’s show was VERY progressive for its time, but it did make a point multiple times to have some characters, mostly Usagi, being at BEST hetero normative and naive and at WORST outright homophobic.
Idk why you decided to include ships in your argument since the 2 examples that you gave are really carried by fanon (UsagiRei and MakotoAmi), and while both have very scant subtext (I’d argue Makoami has more subtext since Ami and Makoto aren’t currently dating other people while the subtext is going on) neither of them were given anything that couldn’t be easily written off as them being close friends.(*I’m the biggest Makoami shipper there is so I don’t wanna hear that I’m denying subtext, I’m just saying it’s not a stronge enough base to form an argument on*)
I don’t have a stance on the decision to have the Starlights be men instead of women, but I never heard fans complaining calling it bigoted in any way. Obviously people have some problems with it, understandably since it’s a big deviation from the manga canon, but I feel that none of those complaints were ever made from a place of bad judgment toward the OG crew. My simple stance is that it was prob more marketable to have them being male since the majority of the last season is focused on what would be a lesbian romance with the main character, when they could instead just sort of recreate the Mamoru dynamic with another guy.
I’ll give my short cent of Fisheye, I don’t think they ever meant any subtext for him being trans, but I might have missed it. I appreciate his presence on the show and what the crew was trying to do, but he was definitely based on very negative stereotypes of gay men and was downright offensive at times (if you want good rep for gay man Zoisite is an excellent example).
TLDR: I like to criticize media I love, but I don’t focus on the people involved; rather the time period and circumstances it was made in. Overall the 90’s anime tried (and succeeded most of the time) to be a very inclusive and open minded show while being based in an era were certain topics/representation were very scant and difficult to display.
Also a big element I forgot to mention is that Sailor Moon was becoming one of the biggest franchises in Japan at the time, so the crew was most likely more restricted on liberal decisions and were instead instructed to make as safe a show as possible to keep it marketable.
My OP was prompted by seeing various comments throwing shade at the original anime and its staff for bigotry, specifically when it came to the Starlights. I respect not everyone has encountered such comments but I have, and done so frequently enough for it to aggravate me.
I wont deny instances of heteronormativity in the show, but my point (which was mostly about the Starlights) was more about how neither the show nor its staff were inherently bigoted nor were they making changes from the manga for the sake of being 'permissable'.
My point more specifically with the Inner Senshi ships was that if the show was so dead set against female-female relationships why ever invite that into the canon in the first place? Because make no mistake, the instances the fandom have highlighted aren't stuff that happened like once or twice nor things that the creators could have put in purely by accident, unaware of what they were inviting, even if they didn't themselves believe Rei and Usagi were in love or whatever. This gets even more suspect when you realise Ikuhara as the series director (and frequent regular director in season 1) loves his subtextual and often very much textual gay relationships, especially lesbians (e.g. Revolutionary Girl Utena).
If you are so very hetero normative, why ever put those little moments in at all?
As I pointed out, the marketability argument doesn't add up when Uranus and Neptune were already and established and incredibly popular ship. Haruka's VA even won an award for her work on S.
Whilst it is true the anime went further in recreating the Usagi Mamoru dynamic, Seiya didn't need to be male to achieve this.
So, if Seiya didn't need to be male for the ship to narratively function but also it was redundant from a marketing POV, you are left with either the staff were bigots, or it just made more pragmatic sense as I suggested. Therefore, why are we presuming guilt on their part?
I won't deny Fisheye can be seen as problematic, but I also think they were clearly gunning for trans. But, even if we agree he was intended as gay, there are other gay or subtextually gay men in the show that aren't depicted like that, so I think he was the way he was because the Amazon Trio as a whole have this sexual predator subtext going on. I don't think it speaks to a broader bigotry of the staff.
You say they were instructed to keep it safe, but they pushed boundaries the hardest in their third season, very much during the shows zenith of popularity. Then followed it up with a season with a thinly veiled sexual assault allegory almost every episode and another season where the main love interest is murdered and there is an ongoing will they/wont they with the lead heroine and a new potential lover, thereby upending the 4 season long episode formula and risking audiences hate Usagi for (in their eyes) cheating on Mamoru.
Hardly safe stuff.
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