TV Asahi Spring Anime Festival
As I’m sure we’ve discussed countless times, Sailor Moon was a media juggernaut throughout the 1990s, as evidenced by it being able to hold onto the leading hour of Japan’s much beloved “Golden Time” – 7 to 10pm at night – for its entire run.
When you’re that famous and and on the top of Japan’s animation game, is it any wonder that there would be crossovers between it and other anime? Today, we’ll talk about one such anime that shares a surprising connection with the story of our favorite sailor-suited soldiers of justice.
Sailor Moon parody in a 1/18/2008 episode of Doraemon
In case you’re wondering what’s going on with the cover image there, it’s a 1993 commercial aired on TV Asahi to promote its Spring Anime Festival,1 which was being promoted by Doraemon and all the other leading anime at the time. You should definitely watch it for a bit of retro anime fun!
As much as I’d love to talk more about that, though, unfortunately Usagi doesn’t talk in the video and only appears for a brief second.
No, instead we’re here to talk about the odd recurring crossovers between Sailor Moon and everyone’s favorite trouble-maker, Crayon Shin-chan.2 This actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it, seeing as they aired on the same TV station, though Crayon Shin-chan took the coveted 7pm time slot on Mondays.
Crayon Chin-Chan?
Interestingly enough, the appearances go both ways, first off with Shinnosuke Nohara (Shin-chan, our titular character) appearing in Sailor Moon in the form of a doll landing at ChibiUsa’s feet as she plays in a park.3
Seeing as Japanese companies seem to be worried about copyrights in the most bizarre ways, they copied the design but wrote Chin on his shirt.
Now, it could just be a combination of Shin-chan = chin here, but I have a feeling the joke is a bit more vulgar, since the word chin on Japanese is used both for… two different parts of the male anatomy. The “frank” (chinchin; ちんちん)4 and “beans” (chinko; ちんこ),5 if you will. Call me a critic, but I think this joke fits well with the character’s personality.
ChibiUsa then looks up from the UFO catcher doll in her hand to see a handsome young boy run up to her, multi-colored bubbles everywhere in the background to make sure that we, the audience, know that she thinks he’s cool. The boy then does what can only be described as the “most hideous dance known to man”6 before… taking off his pants. And underwear. You know, in case he hadn’t broken enough laws.
Pretty sure this is frowned upon in public
“Wait a tick,” you say, with a thick British accent. “That voice sounds familiar!”
Misae Nomiya, mother to Shin-chan
Ignoring for a second that you’re probably not listening to the audio, yes my attentive reader, you’re right! This boy is voiced by none other than Akiko Yajima,7 the voice of Shin-chan himself.
And that woman next to him, his mother? Well, she happens to look a lot like Misae Nomiya, Shin-chan’s mother. What are the odds!
But who’s really getting the last laugh here?
In 2001, the creators of Crayon Shin-chan returned the favor in their feature-length animated film, Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Adult Empire Strikes Back.8
In the movie, the adults start to act like children, which results in this scene here with three of Shin-chan’s preschool teachers dressed up in sailor suits and ready to triumph over evil.
Left to right: Ageo-sensei, Matsuzaka-sensei, and Yoshinaga-sensei
What does a silly little parody like this matter? Well, Ageo-sensei is voiced by none other than Usagi’s voice actress Kotono Mitsuishi,9 and Matsukaza-sensei is voiced by Rei’s Michie Tomizawa.10
But this wouldn’t be the only time these two would don sailor uniforms in this series.
Once again, during the hour-long special in celebration of Crayon Shin-chan being on the air for 15 years,11 Ageo-sensei and Matsuzaka-sensei poke a little fun at their counterparts in the opening act of the “Lord of the Squid Ring” story, with Ageo-sensei (voiced by Kotono /Usagi) even breaking out her catch-phrase, “In the name of the moon, I’ll punish you!”
Bonus points for the pose!
Later in the episode, Matsuzaka-sensei (voiced by Michie / Rei) tries to get in on the action and also throws out the famous Sailor Moon line, but gets shut down by Ageo-sensei who tells her “Hey, that’s my line!”
While there are no doubt countless parodies of Sailor Moon that appeared in other anime and live action shows back in the day and even now, I’ve decided to not include them because they are, at the end of the day, just parodies of the genre in general rather than a direct homage to Sailor Moon directly.
Some disturbing cosplay on Tetsuko’s Room
I’m confident that there must be more references to other anime and manga, and other series that featured an homage to the Sailor Moon cast, but since this all happened so long ago, it will definitely take some time to find them all.
If you know of any other characters that appeared in the show, or where our sailor-suited cast may have appeared in another anime, I’d love to hear about it!
References:
- See TV Asahi 1993 Spring Anime Festival ↩
- Disclaimer: I don’t like Crayon Shin-chan; see Crayon Shin-chan (Wikipedia) ↩
- See Sailor Moon episode 104; episode 15 of Sailor Moon S ↩
- See ちんちん (Jisho.org) ↩
- See ちんこ (Jisho.org) ↩
- See the scene ↩
- See Akiko Yajima (Wikipedia) ↩
- See Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Adult Empire Strikes Back (Wikipedia) ↩
- See Kotono Mitsuishi (Wikipedia) ↩
- See Michie Tomizawa (Wikipedia) ↩
- See Crayon Shin-chan – What a Legend! Squid Ring Special ↩
There was suppose to a subtle Sailor Moon reference in it’s successor, Cutey Honey Flash. In a late episode, Honey goes clothes shopping, and tries on various outfits. One of the outfits was suppose to Sailor Moon’s fuku, but got changed to a “Playboy Bunny” in the actual episode.
That’s strange that they’d avoid the Sailor Moon costume, since it’s generic enough that you could easily get away with it (and it’s not like any other anime really go out of their way to not spoof Sailor Moon).
I wonder if it’s because the playboy bunny suit was a sexier design? Cutey Honey‘s always struck me as pretty risque for a kids’ show.
What did you expect, that guy started out doing hentai. It’s some handy bleached underwear.
It seems that everybody is paroding Sailor Moon transformation sequence lately (especially western cartoons and webtoons) that it becames old and honestly I dont like it. It’s ALWAYS just the transformation.
Exactly!! I love crossovers and little nods to characters from different series, but the whole transformation parodying has gotten really old. Like, as of 10+ years ago.
As it is, her transformation has probably been parodied more than she actually transformed herself in the series.
Glad I’m not an only one irritated by this!
It’s a bit sad that Sailor Moon became reduced to only transformation parodies/references. I liked little nod to Serenity’s dress in Adventure Time – Fiona’s dress was clearly inspired by Serenity, but different enough to be more than just reference. Clever and subltle nod.
I think you summarized it quite nicely here: a good reference is a subtle nod, and not a slap across the face with it.
As a viewer, it’s actually a lot of fun to be watching something and then just stop all of a sudden and say “… wait, was that…?? Did I just see that?” and then watch the scene over (and over, and over) again.
We’ve just had a definite Sailor Moon/Magical Girl shout-out in the latest episode of Dragonball Super, in the form of Ribrianne.
http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Brianne_de_Chateau
I have to say, I too get a bit tired of parodies always going for the same targets.
Which is why my one of my personal favorites, is Nobel from G Gundam (itself a SM reference).
http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/GF13-050NSW_Nobel_Gundam
It gets a repaint in Build Fighters that is clearly modeled on Jupiter. So there’s one refreshingly non-Usagi example. You barely ever see the other Senshi get nods like that sadly.
http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/Nobel_Gundam_Deco
Also, Akira and Yukari from Precure A La Mode, are almost like expys of Haruka and Michiru.
THERE WAS A EPISODE OF A STATE SIDE ANIME CALLED MEGAS XLR THE FIRST EPISODE OF SEASON 2 THAT HAS A TEAM FROM SPACE THAT WERE JUST LIKE THE sailor suited soldiers THEY CAME TO EARTH TO ASK THE SHOW’S HERO FOR HELP BUT ENDDED UP WITH HIS SIDE KICK
I think I heard somewhere that Saiyaman from DBZ was a partial spoof of Sailor Moon (as well as other Tokusatsu like the Ginyu Force was) What with the posing and catchphrases.
Hmm… interesting. If anything, I always thought of Great Saiyaman as a spoof off of the Kamen Rider series more than anything else — especially considering he had a very strong tokusatsu feel to him, thought he always worked alone.
There was one in a show called Reboot
I remember that show!
I always liked the nod in Fushigi Yuugi, when Miaka (voiced by Kae Araki) did the “in the name of the moon I’ll punish you pose” in one if the early episodes!
Didn’t Excel Saga have a Sailor Moon parody? Excel Excel was even voiced by Mitsuishi Kotono as well.
The 1995 anime Wedding Peach has ties to Sailor Moon with Kazuko Tadano doing the designs and a few voice actors having roles. Mika Doi voiced the main villain Reine Devila. Rika Fukami had a few season 1 episodes as devil Aquelda. Long before voicing Artemis on PGSM, Kappei Yamaguchi voiced Takuro. Season brought us Potamos, voiced by Kotono Mitsuishi. In the Wedding Peach DX OVA, she returns in 1 episode where she tells the Love Angels to transform when it’s time. There was also a short where she also had a special Fighting Angel transformation (wedding dress changes into a Sailor fuku style costume) where she becomes Angel J’taime Potamos.
For the complete Spring Anime Festival 1993 Commercial, here it is (it is already down on YouTube). Usagi actually speaks! Though she seems to have a different VA in this commercial.
Here’s the link to video my bad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1002946087831814145
Usagi speaks at around 1:06
Did you know that fans were always dreaming of having a crossover with sailor moon and saint seiya I say who wouldn’t think of having a crossover of these two would be a great show.
1) sorry if I’m wrong to assume, but judging by the name and the mention about the Dream Galactic Defenders Crossover™, es usted tambien latino, como yo? Because Saint Seiya, while a cult classic, is overwhelmingly popular mostly here in LATAM.
2) I can vouch that what you say is 100% true, because as a kid, there was no team up I wanted more than the Sailor Senshi x Athena Saints: my brother, all of my cousins, almost every kid in school, we all wanted that so, so much. It was common to play and make up scenarios were they fought together or against each other, which characters would get along with who, how would they react to each other, etc etc. Both shows were about high schoolers who also were space/planet/star themed defenders of justice, had transformation sequences, and similar structure.
Hell, I still want that crossover so bad. Gemini Saga and the Outer Senshi throwing planets at each other, Shiryu using the Libra Cloth and lending the Inner Senshi the Libra Weapons to fight against a common enemy, leading to stuff like Sailor Venus with nunchuks, Sailor Mars, with a lance (in reference to the Mars symbol, who has a lance), and Sailor Moon with a SWORD!!!
Back then, I firmly believed Usagi and (Pegasus) Seiya would have become BFFs at the speed of light, and I stand by that statement.