Long-form articles exploring an issue in-depth.
Prince Endymion and Princess Serenity
Sailor Moon‘s editor and Ami mega-fan Fumio “Osabu” Osano continues to spill the behind-the-scenes dish on how the series’ story came together — sometimes at the last minute! — and what its lasting impact has been.
Read on for part 2 of this exciting interview!1
The Sailor Team
Whether you’re a casual fan of the series or a dyed-in-the-wool Moonie, you have to admit that very few anime series do birthdays quite like the Sailor Moon franchise does.
The June 30, 2019 event was no different, with a slew of large announcements awaiting eager fans, including some tantalizing glimpses of the character art for the upcoming Sailor Moon Crystal movie, led by the 90s Sailor Moon art director veteran Kazuko Tadano, as well as information on a Sailor Moon ice show, cafe, and more.1
But in addition to offering this exciting images of Sailor Moon‘s future, we were also lucky enough to get a “behind the curtain” look at the creation of the series through the eyes of Naoko Takeuchi’s Nakayoshi editor, Fumio “Osabu” Osano, via an interview with the Japanese pop culture news site, Natalie.2
There’s a lot of interesting background information here that I wanted to share, so I decided to translate the whole interview across several parts. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Codename: Sailor V
If there’s one thing that the past several years of blogging about Sailor Moon has taught me, it’s that nothing is as simple as it seems, especially when it comes to the in-universe timeline.
While an amazing series in its own right, Codename: Sailor V (“Sailor V“) only seems to exacerbate this problem by squeezing a whole story line into the one year or so leading up to Usagi and Luna’s fateful meeting — all without ever addressing the implications her adventures have upon Sailor Moon‘s lore.
Today we’re going to take a closer look at the connections between these two series and try to answer the question of whether we can truly consider Sailor V to be a prequel, or perhaps part of a parallel universe. You might want to take notes, because we’ve got a lot to discuss!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Senshi?
As I’m sure many of you have already heard, the story about how famed anime Director Kunihiko Ikuhara — known for such works as Sailor Moon, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and the recent smash hit Sarazanmai — secretly directed the one of the first episodes that turned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into a household name is hitting all the major anime news outlets and taking social media by storm.
In light of his spectacular portfolio and what a revolutionary series Ninja Turtles would become, the story certainly seems believable. What’s more, it’s even backed up by a statement by the story writer, David Wise, himself.
But is this really the case? Well, as they say, if something is too good to be true…1
Death R_b__n Revolution!
It never fails to amaze me just how popular Sailor Saturn is within the Sailor Moon universe despite how little “screen time” she gets in both the anime and the manga. While things played out for her a little better in book form, she is sadly one of the only members of the Sailor Team to have never make it into one of the movies. Poor girl.
And yet even with all that popularity and fan attention, we still find ourselves debating what should be the simplest of questions: what is the name of her ultimate attack, and what does it even mean?
Today we’re going to dissect Hotaru Tomoe’s one-and-done Infinity Arc attack, Death R_b__n Revolution, and settle this issue once and for all.1 If you’re a fan of the Mistress (9) of Death, you’ll want to stick around!
Sadly, these fireworks aren’t going to last forever
Over the decades, many fans on both sides of the Pacific have tried to answer this seemingly simple question in a variety of interesting ways, ranging from a sheer commonsense approach (which, as we’ve learned time and again, doesn’t exactly work well with Sailor Moon) to in-depth analyses of the clothing the denizens of the Silver Millennium wear.
Unfortunately each of the answers I’ve heard thus far seems to fall short on one point or another, and I find myself wanting something just a little bit more concrete. Assuming that’s even possible.
Today we’re going to take a look at some of the popular theories surrounding the fall of the Silver Millennium and then take a stab at the question ourselves. If you’ve also been mulling this over for the past dozen or so years, this one’s for you!
Usagi’s got some serious questions here
One thing that I find fascinating is the concept of what is the “official” Sailor Moon translation. In North America alone, both the anime and manga have had a whopping three different officially licensed adaptations since hitting this side of the Pacific.1
This, of course, doesn’t even take into account all of the subtitled versions, scanlations, and other fan-established terminology.
So what’s the right answer, and why is it so hard for all these qualified translators to “get it right”?
Today we’re going to take a look at some of the more challenging names to translate in Sailor Moon, and about some of the strategies used to get around them. Be sure to take notes — there might be a test at the end!2