In seventh grade, I was the perpetually frizzy-haired, braces-wearing, glasses-clad girl wearing a Winnie the Pooh baby t-shirt. I wasn’t a complete social pariah but I wasn’t popular. I was just there—like your typical side-kick best friend in a YA novel.
Since I was just there, I read a lot, hung out with my Star Wars obsessed sweatpants only wearing “boyfriend” and daydreaming about high school popularity and eventual stardom.I watched a lot of TV too, so much that I would write my schedule down on small pink leaflets of paper for each afternoon, evening and Saturday morning. Between avidly watching Melrose Place and praying that we’d get The WB, I stumbled upon Sailor Moon on USA.
I was instantly hooked on Usagi’s (US name Serena) story—a crybaby, average 14 year old who turns out to be a Sailor Scout fighting evil with her equally bad-ass group of best friends. She also had a talking cat, Luna, and a smokin’ hot older love interest (and superhero!) Tuxedo Mask who remains on my list of cartoon crushes. We all have that list right?
In only one season I fell deep into my Sailor Moon worship. I’d visit all the fan sites I could through our WebTV—taking and altering my personality quiz questions so I’d always get Serena as my match. I participated in message boards where I ended up with pen pals where we’d send each other sloppy cursive on Hello Kitty stationary talking about Serena, Rei and Darien. I even got sent mangas and two of the movies in Japanese—and I’d watch them over again even though there were no English subtitles. I replaced the Winnie the Pooh baby tee with a Sailor Moon one from Delia’s that I wore so often that the faces scratched off.
Usagi’s clumsiness and cry baby tendencies were a little too relatable to my life. And I got to live vicariously through her superhero adventures and swoony banter with Tuxedo Mask while I sludged through the math homework and angst of junior high.
After a season filled with magical accessories, flying roses and evil forces when the finale came around I wasn’t emotionally prepared. And it was even worse than I expected it to be! After the Sailor Scouts fight Queen Beryl, the big bad of the season, they are destroyed one by one. Even though they pull through, none of them remember each other after the big fight. Despite my carefully written out TV schedule, I had never THAT invested in a television show. I cried for what felt like hours, in panic mode on whether or not the Sailor Scouts would find each other again. I never really found out. USA never aired a second season. Even though Cartoon Network aired the series on Toonami, the show itself was butchered and aired out of order. My allowance wasn’t cushy enough to save for the entire subtitled series, so I channeled my newfound anime interest into series like Oh My Goddess! Nothing was ever quite Sailor Moon though.
When Hulu recently announced that they’d be streaming all of Sailor Moon and would air the Sailor Moon Crystal reboot simultaneously as it aired in Japan, I nearly died. I had only seen bits and pieces of the show since my seventh grade obsession. I watched the first four of the original with friends over a boozy brunch and swooned over Tuxedo Mask all over again.
Sailor Moon Crystal has aired two episodes so far on Hulu. The first one is a complete shot for shot of the pilot episode and the second episode veers off from the original. Watching as an adult, however, has totally shifted my perspective. Despite this, I still relate too much to Usagi, am bowled over by the gorgeous animation and hope that my roommate’s cat is secretly my Luna. Now, I realize how misguided my Tuxedo Mask crush may have been. Usagi hasn’t yet had much in the way of interaction with Tuxedo Mask. But in those small interactions, I’m feeling some Pretty Little Liars vibes off it. She’s supposed to be 14 and he’s clearly MUCH OLDER. Is Sailor Moon actually set in Rosewood?
Maybe it wasn’t completely apparent in watching the USA version or my teen viewing priorities but the second episode of Sailor Moon Crystal focuses on finding Ami aka Sailor Mercury which originally happens a couple episodes later. The path to finding Sailor Mercury is a love letter to female friendships. Ami’s the rich, smart, loner girl at school who Luna on her computer (A CAT COMPUTER?!) discovers that she could be Mercury. When Usagi and Ami first interact, it’s adorable. Usagi thinks that Ami is super cute and that maybe if they are friends she’ll be a girl genius like her. While we don’t really get Ami’s inner thoughts, Usagi pushes her to play a video game that she’s great at and asks her for spontaneous ice cream trips. It’s completely, perfectly representative of pursuing a friendship with a lady you meet at a networking event or through mutual friends and admiring the art she makes or her ability to tell a funny story.
And, sadly, that’s what I never got from Sailor Moon when I first watched it. Or maybe the butchered USA version decided teen girls didn’t need to see how enriched and strengthened their lives could be with female friendships instead of competition and jealousy. It’s something I could have used much more of when I was that age. Hell, it’s something I still need more of.
Wherever that frizzy haired girl is now, watching Sailor Moon Crystal from her IPad or whatever the youths have, I hope between misguidedly swooning over Tuxedo Mask and hoping for more adventure—she sees the importance in having a core group of ladies who can help make you a superhero in your own right.
