Forum - View topic

Jason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga - Sailor Moon

LinaLoN wrote:

BTW you are NOT the only guy who likes Sailor Moon and no... don't have to be gay either. The storylines and characters are what draws people in.

My god. Do some people still buy into this ancient stereotype of guys liking shojo (and Sailor Moon) makes them gay? Every once in a while I still come across people on anime forums who get into a fuss over what anime they like watching somehow reflecting on their sexuality. People, if you're really gay you'd get turned on by the same sex, not because you're watching Sailor Moon.

I'm not sure it's accurate to say SM is a feminist magical girl shojo manga. It sure never struck me as feminist back in the day. It's truly female friendly, for sure, unlike most magical girls that have been made since CCS (which pandered to male otaku), but it's not really "feminist".

BTW - Toei didn't make Zoicite a woman...that decision was made in the US because they didn't want moms to freak out over two guys being lovers.

CCS comment aside (That's a whole can of worms where we could go any way with which audience CLAMP was pandering to with CCS) Sailor Moon could be extremely feminist depending on what your definition of feminism is, and what branch of feminism you're going for.

If you take a step back and look at the Sailor Moon universe, the women in Sailor Moon are never held back because of their gender, they rule because they are female. Men do not have the power in that world, it's total female domination. Outside of Tuxedo Mask, any men that usually do show up are some sort of bad guy trying to trick the girls to some degree, and the girls deal with it. Tuxedo Mask himself is useless, and doesn't really have any power of his own, all he does is sprout flowery words.

The girls never need men, never have to depend on them (though Usagi's relationship with Mamoru is the exception, love makes that girl strong be it with him or based on the relationship with everyone else). The men in Sailor Moon are living in a girl's world, under girl's rules. It's the ultimate feminist dream, an answer to "what if woman ruled the world" (Neo-Tokyo for the win). Or it's a nightmare if you see it as defeating the purpose of feminism when the sexes are not equal; the total reverse of a man's world with woman ruling all, and men standing to the side as arm candy.

Then you have the earlier definition of feminism - that of "the qualities of females", and all throughout Sailor Moon the girls never lose what make them women (unlike the example brought up with Claymore where everyone is pretty much a brainwashed, emotionless husk of a soldier who I suspect have had their uterus' removed). The girls of Sailor Moon are still girls/women. They never lose their gentleness, love, or care for appearance, and Usagi is the ultimate creator/mother; creating peace, spreading love and the ultimate nurturing force.

The fact that they use beauty products is a bit of a conundrum depending on which branch of feminism you're going with, but I find it as an amusing little quirk because I don't see beauty products as a shackle put on us by males, but by woman, and there's nothing wrong with looking the best you can be. I also always looked at their "make-up" transformation as a way to hide their true identities from their enemies, like Clark Kent with his glasses.

With that though brings up the short skirts and the question of objectifying the female body. Do guys find it sexy? Sure. Should the girls cover themselves up with pants instead? If we go down this road, we might as well go the 60s/70s feminism route; we should take away bras while we're at it, but if we do that we're possibly objectifying the girls even more because guys will be able to notice the form of nipples. Females will always have the ability to turn on a guy no matter what they do, but we're not about to go cover ourselves with Burkas because of basic instinct on the male side of our race.

I personally never thought feminism meant I had to hide what god gave me, and that I couldn't use it either. If the male gender is distracted by it during a fight, more power to those girls. That in itself can be a form of feminism.

It's amazing how in America in the past three decades how most everything seems to be aimed at male audiences and not so much to female audiences. It would be nice to see more of the magical girl anime aired on TV in the US but any anime that does air is always pretty shounen obsessed.

Actually, now that you mention it, most shonen heroes are totally dumb too (I mean, there are exceptions like Zatch Bell and Death Note, but the majority of shonen manga heroes aren't exactly genius material).

Tuxedo Mask himself is useless, and doesn't really have any power of his own, all he does is sprout flowery words.

The otaku in me wants to interject. Tuxedo Mask actually gains his own projectile attack in the manga, making him a bit stronger than his anime counterpart.

Because when it comes down to Neilsen ratings, girls don't watch TV!

Seriously, the last equivalent of shoujo on American TV is W.I.T.C.H., and many girls don't even know about it.

enurtsol wrote:

Because when it comes down to Neilsen ratings, girls don't watch TV! Seriously, the last equivalent of shoujo on American TV is W.I.T.C.H., and many girls don't even know about it.

Because the first season kind of sucked and by the time Greg Weisman came to do something about it was just too late. The comic did well in many countries though.

Girls just don't watch TV, so they only have themselves to blame.

Did you know it even had a manga (and by that, I don't mean a Japanese translation of the Western comics)?

enurtsol wrote:

Girls just don't watch TV, so they only have themselves to blame.

Sound just like a true tv executive, careful you may start balding and think of which fox series would be better to cancel next

enurtsol wrote:

Did you know it even had a manga (and by that, I don't mean a Japanese translation of the Western comics)?

Yeah I saw many of the pictures, Luba became a normal catgirl and Taranee looks way better on it, and strangely enough Irma wasn't made more buxom O.o I guess it was the demographics.

I still find it interesting that while shojo seems banished from tv on th states, it seems to do well on manga. Guess that is what girls do with all the time the do not spend watching tv or maybe not.