Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Manga)

**Sailor Moon** also known as as *Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon* and later as *Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon*, is a **Japanese shōjo manga series** written and illustrated by **Naoko Takeuchi**. It was originally serialized in **Nakayoshi** from 1991 to 1997; the 60 individual chapters were published in 18 volumes. The series follows the adventures of a schoolgirl named Usagi Tsukino as she transforms into Sailor Moon to search for a magical artifact, the "Legendary Silver Crystal" She leads a group of comrades, the Sailor Soldiers, called Sailor Guardians in later editions, as they battle against villains to prevent the theft of the Silver Crystal and the destruction of the Solar System.

The Manga was Adapted Anime Series By **Toei Animation** and was Broadcast in During 1992 and 1997, Toei also developed three animated feature films, a television special, and three short films based on the anime. A live-action television adaptation, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, aired from 2003 to 2004, and a second anime series, Sailor Moon Crystal, began simulcasting in 2014. as for The manga series it was licensed for an English language release by **Kodansha Comics** in North America, and in Australia and New Zealand by Random House Australia. The entire anime series has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language release in North America and by Madman Entertainment in Australia and New Zealand. Since its release, *Sailor Moon* has received acclaim, with praise for its art, characterization, and humor. The manga has sold over 35 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling *shōjo* manga series. The franchise has also generated $13 billion in worldwide merchandise sales.

## More Info

### English publisher

Penguin Books Australia (Australia) Kodansha Comics (North America) Turnaround Publisher Services (United Kingdom)

### Volumes

18 (1st Edition) 12 (2nd Edition) 10 (3rd Edition)

## Plot

In Juban, Tokyo, a middle-school student named Usagi Tsukino befriends Luna, a talking black cat who gives her a magical brooch enabling her to transform into Sailor Moon: a soldier destined to save Earth from the forces of evil. Luna and Usagi assemble a team of fellow Sailor Guardians to find their princess and the Silver Crystal. They encounter the studious Ami Mizuno, who awakens as Sailor Mercury; Rei Hino, a local Shinto shrine maiden who awakens as Sailor Mars; Makoto Kino, a tall and strong transfer student who awakens as Sailor Jupiter; and Minako Aino, a young aspiring idol who had awakened as Sailor Venus a few months prior, accompanied by her talking feline companion Artemis. Additionally, they befriend Mamoru Chiba, a high school student who assists them on occasion as Tuxedo Mask.

In the first arc, the group battles the Dark Kingdom, whose members attempt to find the Silver Crystal and free an imprisoned, evil entity called Queen Metaria. Usagi and her team discover that in their previous lives they were members of the ancient Moon Kingdom in a period of time called the Silver Millennium. The Dark Kingdom waged war against them, resulting in the destruction of the Moon Kingdom. Its ruler Queen Serenity sent her daughter Princess Serenity, reincarnated as Usagi, along with her protectors the Sailor Guardians, their feline advisers Luna and Artemis, and the princess's true love Prince Endymion, who in turn was reborn as Mamoru.

At the beginning of the second arc, the Sailor Guardians meet Usagi and Mamoru's future daughter Chibiusa, who arrives from a 30th-century version of Tokyo known as "Crystal Tokyo", which has been attacked by the group of villains known as the Black Moon Clan. During their journey, Sailor Moon and her friends meet Sailor Pluto, Guardian of the Time-Space Door. During the climactic battle of the arc, Chibiusa awakens as a Guardian herself—Sailor Chibi Moon.

The third arc introduces car-racer Haruka Tenoh and violinist Michiru Kaioh, who appear as Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, whose duty is to guard the Solar System from external threats. Physics student Setsuna Meioh, Sailor Pluto's reincarnation, joins Uranus and Neptune in their mission to kill a mysterious girl named Hotaru Tomoe, whom they identify as the Guardian of Destruction Sailor Saturn. However, when Saturn awakens she joins the final fight against the main antagonists of the arc, the Death Busters, sacrificing her life in the process. With her newly obtained powers as Super Sailor Moon, Usagi restores the Earth and Hotaru is reincarnated.

The fourth arc explores the Sailor Guardians' dreams and nightmares when the villainous group Dead Moon Circus exploits the Guardians' deepest fears, invades Elysion (which hosts the Earth's Golden Kingdom), and captures its High Priest Helios. This storyline also addresses Mamoru's relevance as protector of the Earth and owner of the Golden Crystal, the sacred stone of the Golden Kingdom. Mamoru and all ten of the reunited Guardians combine their powers, enabling Usagi to transform into Eternal Sailor Moon and defeat Dead Moon's leader, Queen Nehelenia.

In the final arc the Sailor Starlights from the planet Kinmoku, their ruler Princess Kakyuu, and the infant Chibichibi join Usagi in her fight against Shadow Galactica, a group of both corrupted and false Sailor Guardians, who have been rampaging across the galaxy and killing other Sailor Guardians to steal their star seeds—the essence of their lives. After Mamoru and all of the Solar System Guardians are killed by Shadow Galactica, Usagi travels to the Galaxy Cauldron, the birthplace of all star seeds of the Milky Way, in an attempt to revive her loved ones and to confront Chaos, the source of all strife in the galaxy.

## Production

Naoko Takeuchi redeveloped *Sailor Moon* from her 1991 manga serial ***Codename: Sailor V***, which was first published on August 20, 1991, and featured Sailor Venus as the main protagonist. Takeuchi wanted to create a story with a theme about girls in outer space. While discussing with her editor Fumio Osano, he suggested the addition of Sailor fuku. When *Codename: Sailor V* was proposed for adaptation into an anime by Toei Animation, Takeuchi redeveloped the concept so Sailor Venus became a member of a team. The resulting manga series became a fusion of the popular magical girl genre and the *Super Sentai* series, of which Takeuchi was a fan. Recurring motifs include astronomy, astrology, gemology, Greek and Roman mythology, Japanese elemental themes, teen fashions, and schoolgirl antics.

Takeuchi said discussions with Kodansha originally envisaged a single story arc; the storyline was developed in meetings a year before serialization began. After completing the arc, Toei and Kodansha asked Takeuchi to continue the series. She wrote four more story arcs, which were often published simultaneously with the five corresponding seasons of the anime adaptation. The anime ran one or two months behind the manga. As a result, the anime follows the storyline of the manga fairly closely, although there are deviations. Takeuchi later said because Toei's production staff were mostly male, she feels the anime has "a slight male perspective."

Takeuchi later said she planned to kill off the protagonists, but Osano rejected the notion and said, "[*Sailor Moon*] is a *shōjo* manga!" When the anime adaptation was produced, the protagonists were killed in the final battle with the Dark Kingdom, although they were revived. Takeuchi resented that she was unable to do that in her version. Takeuchi also intended for the *Sailor Moon* anime adaptation to last for one season, but due to the immense popularity, Toei asked Takeuchi to continue the series. At first, she struggled to develop another storyline to extend the series. While discussing with Osano, he suggested the inclusion of Usagi's daughter from the future, Chibiusa.

## Media

### Manga

Written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi, *Sailor Moon* was serialized in the monthly manga anthology *Nakayoshi* from December 28, 1991, to February 3, 1997. The side-stories were serialized simultaneously in *RunRun*—another of Kodansha's manga magazines. The 52 individual chapters were published in 18 *tankōbon* volumes by Kodansha from July 6, 1992, to April 4, 1997. In 2003, the chapters were re-released in a collection of 12 *shinzōban* volumes to coincide with the release of the live-action series. The manga was retitled *Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon* and included new cover art, and revised dialogue and illustrations. The ten individual short stories were also released in two volumes. In 2013, the chapters were once again re-released in 10 *kanzenban* volumes to commemorate the manga's 20th anniversary, which includes digitally remastered artwork, new covers and color artwork from its *Nakayoshi* run. The books have been enlarged from the typical Japanese manga size to A5. The short stories were republished in two volumes, with the order of the stories shuffled. *Codename: Sailor V* was also included in the third edition.

The *Sailor Moon* manga was initially licensed for an English release by Mixx (later Tokyopop) in North America. The manga was first published as a serial in *MixxZine* beginning in 1997, but was later removed from the magazine and made into a separate, low print monthly comic to finish the first, second and third arcs. At the same time, the fourth and fifth arcs were printed in a secondary magazine called *Smile*. Pages from the Tokyopop version of the manga ran daily in the Japanimation Station, a service accessible to users of America Online. The series was later collected into a three-part graphic novel series spanning eighteen volumes, which were published from December 1, 1998, to September 18, 2001. In May 2005, Tokyopop's license to the Sailor Moon manga expired, and its edition went out of print.

In 2011, Kodansha Comics announced they had acquired the license for the *Sailor Moon* manga and its lead-in series *Codename: Sailor V* in English. They published the twelve volumes of *Sailor Moon* simultaneously with the two-volume edition of *Codename Sailor V* from September 2011 to July 2013. The first of the two related short story volumes was published on September 10, 2013; the second was published on November 26, 2013. At Anime Expo 2017, Kodansha Comics announced plans to re-release *Sailor Moon* in an "Eternal Edition", featuring a new English translation, new cover artwork by Takeuchi, and color pages from the manga's original run, printed on extra-large premium paper. The first Eternal Edition volume was published on September 11, 2018; the tenth and final volume was published on October 20, 2020. On July 1, 2019, Kondasha Comics began releasing the Eternal Editions digitally, following an announcement the day before about the series being released digitally in ten different languages. In November 2020, Kodansha Comics announced plans to re-release the *Sailor Moon* manga again as part of their "Naoko Takeuchi Collection". The company described the new edition as a "more affordable, portable" version of the Eternal Edition. The first volume was published on September 14, 2021.

*Sailor Moon* has also been licensed in other English-speaking countries. In the United Kingdom, the volumes are distributed by Turnaround Publisher Services. In Australia, the manga is distributed by Penguin Books Australia.

The manga has been licensed in Russia and CIS for distribution by XL-Media publishing company, a subdivision of Eksmo publishing company. The first volume was released in 2018.

### Companion books

There have been numerous companion books to *Sailor Moon*. Kodansha released some of these books for each of the five story arcs, collectively called the *Original Picture Collection*. The books contain cover art, promotional material and other work by Takeuchi. Many of the drawings are accompanied by comments on the way she developed her ideas, created each picture and commentary on the anime interpretation of her story. Another picture collection, *Volume Infinity*, was released as a self-published, limited-edition artbook after the end of the series in 1997. This art book includes drawings by Takeuchi and her friends, her staff, and many of the voice actors who worked on the anime. In 1999, Kodansha published the *Materials Collection*; this contained development sketches and notes for nearly every character in the manga, and for some characters that never appeared. Each drawing includes notes by Takeuchi about costume pieces, the mentality of the characters and her feelings about them. It also includes timelines for the story arcs and for the real-life release of products and materials relating to the anime and manga. A short story, *Parallel Sailor Moon* is also featured, celebrating the year of the rabbit.

### Novels

Sailor Moon was also adapted for publication as novels and released in 1998. The first book was written by Stuart J. Levy and the following written by Lianne Sentar.

## Reception

*Sailor Moon* is one of the most popular manga series of all time and continues to enjoy high readership worldwide. More than one million copies of its *tankōbon* volumes had been sold in Japan by the end of 1995. By the series's 20th anniversary in 2012, the manga had sold over 35 million copies in over fifty countries, and the franchise has generated $13 billion in worldwide merchandise sales as of 2014. The manga won the Kodansha Manga Award in 1993 for *shōjo*. The English adaptations of both the manga and the anime series became the first successful *shōjo* title in the United States. The character of Sailor Moon is recognized as one of the most important and popular female superheroes of all time.

*Sailor Moon* has also become popular internationally. *Sailor Moon* was broadcast in Spain and France beginning in December 1993; these became the first countries outside Japan to broadcast the series. It was later aired in Russia, South Korea, the Philippines, China, Italy, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and Hong Kong, before North America picked up the franchise for adaptation. In the Philippines, *Sailor Moon* was one of its carrier network's main draws, helping it to become the third-biggest network in the country. In 2001, the *Sailor Moon* manga was Tokyopop's best selling property, outselling the next-best selling titles by at least a factor of 1.5. In Diamond Comic Distributors's May 1999 "Graphic Novel and Trade Paperback" category, *Sailor Moon* Volume 3 was the best-selling comic book in the United States.

In his 2007 book *Manga: The Complete Guide*, Jason Thompson gave the manga series three stars out of four. He enjoyed the blending of *shōnen* and *shōjo* styles and said the combat scenes seemed heavily influenced by *Saint Seiya*, but shorter and less bloody. He also said the manga itself appeared similar to *Super Sentai* television shows. Thompson found the series fun and entertaining, but said the repetitive plot lines were a detriment to the title, which the increasing quality of art could not make up for; even so, he called the series "sweet, effective entertainment." Thompson said although the audience for *Sailor Moon* is both male and female, Takeuchi does not use excessive fanservice for males, which would run the risk of alienating her female audience. Thompson said fight scenes are not physical and "boil down to their purest form of a clash of wills", which he says "makes thematic sense" for the manga.

Comparing the manga and anime, Sylvain Durand said the manga artwork is "gorgeous", but its storytelling is more compressed and erratic and the anime has more character development. Durand said "the sense of tragedy is greater" in the manga's telling of the "fall of the Silver Millennium," giving more detail about the origins of the Four Kings of Heaven and on Usagi's final battle against Queen Beryl and Metaria. Durand said the anime omits information that makes the story easy to understand, but judges the anime as more "coherent" with a better balance of comedy and tragedy, whereas the manga is "more tragic" and focused on Usagi and Mamoru's romance.

For the week of September 11, 2011, to September 17, 2011, the first volume of the re-released *Sailor Moon* manga was the best-selling manga on *The New York Times* Manga Best Sellers list, with the first volume of *Codename: Sailor V* in second place. The first print run of the first volume sold out after four weeks.

## Legacy

With their dynamic heroines and action-oriented plots, many credit *Sailor Moon* for reinvigorating the magical girl genre. After its success, many similar magical girl series, including *Magic Knight Rayearth*, *Wedding Peach*, *Nurse Angel Ririka SOS*, *Saint Tail*, *Cyber Team in Akihabara* and *Pretty Cure*, emerged. *Sailor Moon* has been called "the biggest breakthrough" in English-dubbed anime until 1995, when it premiered on YTV, and "the pinnacle of little kid *shōjo* anime". Cultural anthropologist Matt Thorn said that soon after *Sailor Moon*, *shōjo* manga started appearing in book shops instead of fandom-dominated comic shops. The series are credited as beginning a wider movement of girls taking up *shōjo* manga. Canadian librarian Gilles Poitras defines a generation of anime fans as those who were introduced to anime by *Sailor Moon* in the 1990s, saying they were both much younger than other fans and were also mostly female.

Historian Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a *Super Sentai*-like team of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with revitalizing the magical girl genre itself. A reviewer for *THEM Anime Reviews* also credited the anime series with changing the genre—its heroine must use her powers to fight evil, not simply have fun as previous magical girls had done. The series has also been compared to *Mighty Morphin Power Rangers*, *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*, and *Sabrina the Teenage Witch*. Sailor Moon also influenced the development of *Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir*, *W.I.T.C.H.*, *Winx Club*, *LoliRock*, *Star vs. the Forces of Evil*, and *Totally Spies!*.

In western culture, *Sailor Moon* is sometimes associated with the feminist and Girl Power movements and with empowering its viewers, especially regarding the "credible, charismatic and independent" characterizations of the Sailor Guardians, which were "interpreted in France as an unambiguously feminist position". Although *Sailor Moon* is regarded as empowering to women and feminism in concept, through the aggressive nature and strong personalities of the Sailor Guardians, it is a specific type of feminist concept where "traditional feminine ideals [are] incorporated into characters that act in traditionally male capacities". While the Sailor Guardians are strong, independent fighters who thwart evil—which is generally a masculine stereotype—they are also ideally feminized in the transformation of the Sailor Guardians from teenage girls into magical girls, with heavy emphasis on jewelry, make-up and their highly sexualized outfits with cleavage, short skirts, and accentuated waists.

The most notable hyper-feminine features of the Sailor Guardians—and most other females in Japanese girls' comics—are the girls' thin bodies, long legs, and, in particular, round, orb-like eyes. Eyes are commonly known as the primal source within characters where emotion is evoked—sensitive characters have larger eyes than insensitive ones. Male characters generally have smaller eyes that have no sparkle or shine in them like the eyes of the female characters. The stereotypical role of women in Japanese culture is to undertake romantic and loving feelings; therefore, the prevalence of hyper-feminine qualities like the openness of the female eye in Japanese girls' comics is clearly exhibited in *Sailor Moon*. Thus, *Sailor Moon* emphasizes a type of feminist model by combining traditional masculine action with traditional female affection and sexuality through the Sailor Guardians. Its characters are often described with "catty stereotypes", Sailor Moon's character, in particular, being singled out as less than feminist.

In English-speaking countries, *Sailor Moon* developed a cult following among anime fans and male university students. Patrick Drazen says the Internet was a new medium that fans used to communicate and played a role in the popularity of *Sailor Moon*. Fans could use the Internet to communicate about the series, organize campaigns to return *Sailor Moon* to U.S. broadcast, to share information about episodes that had not yet aired, or to write fan fiction. In 2004, one study said there were 3,335,000 websites about Sailor Moon, compared to 491,000 for Mickey Mouse. Gemma Cox of *Neo* magazine said part of the series's allure was that fans communicated via the Internet about the differences between the dub and the original version. The *Sailor Moon* fandom was described in 1997 as being "small and dispersed". In a United States study, twelve children paid rapt attention to the fighting scenes in *Sailor Moon*, although when asked whether they thought *Sailor Moon* was violent, only two said yes and the other ten described the episodes as "soft" or "cute".

## Gallery

Sailor Moon Volume 6 English CoverSailor Moon Manga IntroductionReprint Volume 12 Cover Sailor Moon JapaneseUsagi Meets Luna in the Manga
## Videos

Ultimate Sailor Moon Manga Guide (English) セーラームーンWhich Sailor Moon Manga Should You Buy?! Sailor Moon 2011 vs Eternal EditionManga Awesome - Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon - Review
## Reviews

* I Remember This Being the First Manga I Ever Read, Knowing about Sailor moon is a Different story for me as it didn't come from the Manga or Anime But the Video Games, But Off Topic, at the Public Liberty when i was young and they still have them there all 12 Volumes and a Think they have more copies of it and not just one, This Manga was Great and I got to learn how to read manga's because of it. (Review By **Rebekah Rodriguez**, October 4th 2021)