Happy Sailor Moon Day: Dive into the anime series that inspired the evolution of the Magical Girl

At 14, Usagi is a klutz, a slacker, and an F-student. A few pages into Naoko Takeuchi’s 1991 Sailor Moon shōjo manga or 15 minutes into its 1992 Toei anime adaptation, this slacker undergoes a starry transformation into the superpowered Sailor Moon. Together with her sister Guardians, they empower their female-targeted demographic one villain defeat at a time.

Although Sailor Moon’s original director Kunihiko Ikuhara may bristle at calling himself a Magical Girl director, holding the anime closer to the henshin hero superhero genre, Usagi and her Guardians have long been deemed the beacon of the Magical Girl genre. It focuses on a young girl with the ability to magically transform into a superpowered alter ego to fend off nefarious forces. With a declaration of “Moon, Prism Power, make up!” the Guardians’ bodies flush into bioluminescence, galactic backdrops whirl around them, and their wardrobe changes into bespoke battlewear and glamorous weaponry. Cosplayers and drag queens, like Plastique Tiara of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, aspire to their combat couture.

Sailor Moon (center) and her fellow Guardians, the Sailor Scouts.

Viz

An “office lady” pharmacist when she drew Sailor Moon, Takeuchi expressed in a 1996 issue of Animerica magazine that she wanted to spotlight female friendships and heroism: “My friends and I would have chats about relationships or work and we'd always conclude that we shouldn't depend on men. I think that women are actually stronger, and I wanted to draw that in Sailor Moon. Maybe that’s why my male characters die off so easily.” The mangaka’s words pointed to optimism for women outside of patriarchal rules. In the episode, “Girls Unit: the End of Jadeite,” from the first season of Sailor Moon, a villain balks, “Women are such shallow, useless creatures!” To which the Guardians admonish, “Only old-fashioned idiots like you believe in nonsense like that!”

An Animerica feature on Naoko Takeuchi, who admits she kills off her male characters “too easily.”

Animerica

The matrilineal lineages of witches and magical girls

Usagi’s lineage can be traced to Princess Sapphire, one of the Godfather of Manga Osamu Tezuka’s famous characters in his Princess Knight manga that ran from 1953-56. Sapphire doesn’t undergo a flamboyant, sparkly backdropped magical transformation, but conspiring usurpers force her to intermittently operate as a Zorro-esque masked crimefighting hero, all while pretending to be a boy to legally inherit her throne. Tezuka’s manga concludes Sapphire’s story with marriage and queenhood, and a retirement of her male persona (which gave her something akin to gender dysphoria considering her longing for feminine items), but her androgynous appearance still rendered her a springboard for stories that branch outside heteronormatives and the gender binary.

Subsequently, Toei Animation then defined and capitalized on its Magical Girl anime adaptations of mangas, popularizing the word majokko (魔女っ子, “little witch”). In the 1962 manga The Secret of Akko-chan, an ordinary elementary school girl finds a magic mirror that grants her disguises. Then Sally the Witch, the Bewitched-inspired manga serialized and anime adapted in 1966, follows the eponymous magic princess absconding to the human world. Similarly, Majokko Megu-chan, running between 1974 and 1975, depicts an otherworldly teen witch completing a residency on Earth under the shelter of a mortal family. Sapphire, Akko-chan, Sally, and Megu wrote the spellbook for empowered Magical Girls, as Takeuchi took transformation tropes within live-action tokusatsu hero shows like Kamen Rider and accessorized it with a frilly and bejeweled hyper-femininity in Sailor Moon. What made Usagi shine like a diamond in the rough, compared to the magically born Megu and royal Sapphire, were her ordinary origins. Usagi could fall behind on grades and be perpetually late, but she could also rock her battle outfit and save the world.

Grant us the power to revolutionize

And then hatched forth 1997’s Utena Revolutionary Girl anime series. Led by Sailor Moon veterans like director Ikuhara and screenwriter Yōji Enokido, Utena was conceived by the Be-Papas production group, with manga artist character designer Chiho Saito also contributing. 

Utena opens with a primordial “once upon a time” before it signals subversion. Remembering the warmth of a prince who comforted her after her parents’ death, Utena resolves to grow up to be a “prince” herself and don a boy’s uniform when attending the elite Ohtori Academy. Her chance to play prince arrives in the form of a damsel, the bullied classmate Anthy, known as the enigmatic “Rose Bride” who has “the power to revolutionize the world.” When Utena bests Anthy’s abusive fiancée in a sword-duel, her victory entails her to be betrothed to Anthy, but she must win duels to keep Anthy safe from the students coveting Anthy, often with the sinister desire to subjugate her into a plaything. 

To describe the rest of Utena would be like handpainting a map of a palace-sized labyrinth. If its Lynchian symbolism and surreal environment (like a skyhigh baroque spiral staircase to the dueling arena) beguiles you, simply roll with the anime’s abstract vibes like the roses onscreen. Utena has enchanted its viewers with its frank queer relationships, the fluidity of power and passivity, exploration of psychological and sexual abuse, and metaphysical and metaphorical prisms for multiple interpretations. To Animerica, Ikuhara has said of Utena’s androgynous presentation, “It isn't really a male uniform, is it? It's just the clothes that Utena likes. She's not bound by the same male/female conventions that previous characters may have been bound by.”

One downside of Adolescence of Utena is Anthy’s lighter complexion compared to the anime series.

GKIDS

Just as Utena toys around with fairy tale elements of prince and princesses and gallant—or not-so-gallant—rescues, it’s undeniable that Utena radiates Magical Girl practices, as witnessed in their wardrobe change and pre-duel “transformation” rituals for Utena, Anthy, and the other duelists—to the bespoke theme song “Absolute Destiny Apocalypse.” In early duels, Utena pulls the magical sword from Anthy’s chest and shouts, “Grant me the power to bring the world revolution.” Their choreographic ceremony is eventually inverted where Anthy pulls the sword from Utena’s chest to convey their evolving synchronization, and Utena and Anthy share their battle cry, “Grant us the power to bring the world revolution.” Although Utena may be Anthy’s princely protector, she later reckons with her role in perpetuating the system that holds princesses hostage. At the conclusion of the 39-episode anime, Utena vanishes from the oppressive cycle of duels for good and then inspires Anthy to follow, completing the revolution that happens from within. 

The transformation surreality and Utena and Anthy’s bond get upscaled in the 1999 movie Adolescence of Utena, a non-sequel reimagining of the Utena series with different continuity and addition of explicit, passionate kisses between Anthy and Utena. Transformations aren't limited to battle outfits or bestowed weaponry; Utena morphs into a car, which serves as Anthy’s proverbial chariot to liberate themselves. (The adrenaline-vrooming climax also elicits an memetic quote from an adversary, “It's a big mistake to think you're the only one who can turn into a car. I'm a car now too.”)