The List
7 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Sailor Moon
by Lynzee Loveridge,
7. The Sailor Moon Girls Are Fairly Affluent:
The Juuban district of Tokyo is a real area, and is predominately wealthy. Usagi's house is a testament to this as a two-story home on an island whose square footage is very expensive. Her dad works as a newspaper photographer and Ami's mother is an accomplished physician. Mako lives in an apartment in the area, presumably financed by her parent's life insurance.
6. The Tsukino Family: Usagi's household includes herself, her mother Ikuko, her father Kenji, and a brother named Shingo. The entire family is actually named after creator Naoko Takeuchi's own family members, where Usagi would be considered the author surrogate.
5. Rich People Drive Expensive Cars: Given the presumption that Sailor Moon centers around wealthy kids, it should come as no surprise that they drive equally nice cars. Mamoru Chiba is seen driving an Alfa Romeo SZ in the anime series, although Takeuchi at one point drew him as Tuxedo Mask driving a Porsche 962 LM in one of the art books. Haruka Tenoh has a Ferrari 512M in some manga art work, as well as owning motorcycles, helicopters, and a race car.
4. Villain Groups: All of villains throughout Takeuchi's manga, and the corresponding anime adaptations, have a particular theme. Rocks and minerals are present through all five story arcs, while later seasons have secondary themes like from the Greek mythos. Takeuchi also slips in what might seem like advanced chemistry terms in the names, like the droids Chiral and Achiral. This makes sense though, as Takeuchi was a licensed pharmacist with a degree in Chemistry.
3. Sailor Moon is a One-Hit Wonder?: It's hard to categorize a series that had such a profound effect on the anime community as a "one-hit wonder" but the truth is, Takeuchi hasn't produced another popular series in almost 20 years since the manga ended in 1997. In fact, outside of Toki Meca!, which ran for only a year from 2005-2006, her other post Sailor Moon series were cancelled, including the one about female aliens that transform into cockroaches.
2. All of the Weird Sailor Guardians Are in the Musicals: The naming routine for all the canon Sailor Guardians is based off of real planets and heavenly objects in the Solar System up until Sailor Stars when a few fictional planets are introduced. The SeraMyu series gets even stranger, with some highlights being Shiva Shingetsu Astarte/Sailor Astarte from Transylvania in the Transylvania no Mori - Shin Toujou! Chibi Moon wo Mamoru Senshi-tachi musical, and Sailor Buttress, apparently named after an architectural structure, in the Sailor Stars musicals.
1. The Sailor Moon Super S Movie Was Almost a Sailor Uranus and Neptune Film: It's no secret among fans that SuperS is one of the least popular seasons, according to Japanese TV ratings at the time. Kunihiko Ikuhara (who directed episodes of R and S), left the show after SuperS and would later make Revolutionary Girl Utena. Prior to leaving, Ikuhara penned an idea for the SuperS movie (that he claims was approved by a producer) that ultimately wasn't used. He imagined the film as a Sailor Uranus and Neptune standalone story where Uranus had to steal a talisman from Sailor Moon and Co. to awaken a sleeping Neptune in a place called "The End of the World." He also mentions a face-off rodeo scene with two Pegasuses. Ikuhara is weird.
The new poll: In terms of quality, which TV anime studio is your favorite?
The old poll: What's your New Year's resolution this year? Also, thanks for the laughs you guys!
- Find a job/get a better job 19.9%
- Watch more anime 9.6%
- Get in shape 9.1%
- Finish creative projects 8.3%
- Absorb more anime and manga. 8.2%
- Rather than break 'em, I never make 'em. 7.1%
- Find a significant other 6.3%
- Start creative projects 5.1%
- Learn a new skill 3.5%
- Survive 3.0%
- Do better in school 2.7%
- Read more manga 2.6%
- Go back to school 2.1%
- Go to bed earlier 2.1%
- Travel more 1.6%
- 3840 x 2160 1.6%
- Learn lots of Japanese 0.9%
- Graduate from college 0.8%
- Become a competitive gamer 0.7%
- Watch less anime 0.6%
- Organize my anime/manga collection 0.6%
- Find my prince 0.5%
- continue redistributing hobbies via ebay so wife does not have to if I croak first 0.3%
- Read less manga 0.2%
- See family more 0.1%
- Organize my anime figure collection 0.1%
- Move out 0.1%
- Perfect my cow impersonation so that I can gain their trust, infiltrate the herd, and slowly begin to abduct cow after cow so that I can build the ultimate cow-spaceship and travel to Mars to go to Space Las Vegas and lose all my money on space-blackjack 0.1%
- actually watch/read stuff from my backlog instead of re-reading/-watching stuff I've already read/watched 0.1%
When she isn't compiling lists of tropes, topics, and characters, Lynzee works as Associate Editor for Anime News Network, blogs about women and LBGT topics in anime and manga on her blog Engendered Dilemma, and posts pictures of her son on Twitter @ANN_Lynzee.
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