To say that a cartoon series can change your life may sound a bit exaggerated, geeky, or even childish; maybe it’s because I belong to the so-called Millennial generation and exalt the Anime culture I grew up with.
Anyway, for me this series is an ART work with some values in it that have revolutionized me as a person.
We could describe it as a simplified version of what would later become the internationally known Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (1991-2). Sailor V tells the story of a masked heroine, Sailor V, who helps solve crimes with special powers. These powers were given by a white cat named Artemis who accompanies her in her adventures… little by little a dangerous and mysterious plot is revealed, the dangerous Kingdom of Darkness is resurrecting and collecting human energy with evil purposes. That is why Sailor V is called to battle.The Sailor Moon series begins in a similar way.
Usagi Tsukino, a 14-year-old girl who is reckless and obsessed with romance, one day finds a strange black cat being attacked by vandals. When rescuing her, she realizes that she has some bandages on her forehead, and when she removes them, a mark of a crescent moon is revealed… Usagi arrives late to school that day, as usual, and the day goes by normally. Until in the afternoon, after our protagonist wakes up from her nap to find the cat in her room; she starts talking revealing that she is a cat and that her name is Luna. He quickly informs the young woman that she is a warrior of justice with special powers, and urges her to fulfill her mission: to find the other warriors and his princess. He then gives her his transformation pin and we can see, for the first time, the mythical scene of transformation.
I’m not going to talk more about the plot of the series, because as an obsessed fan I could be talking for hours about thousands of details that I consider important*, so I’m going to comment on what I think makes this play special.
First of all, the characters are alive, each character has a personality, a trauma and a story and what unites them is the main character; that which the main character symbolizes throughout the series of Anime (1992) and throughout the manga.
In my opinion, Sailor Moon and her power symbolizes universal love.
Many battles occur throughout the story, but it is when the princess manages to trust, have faith and the conviction that there are many reasons why life is beautiful. She gives herself to the enemy, faces death on numerous occasions without hesitation, breaks the rules of what was thought to be an established truth and demonstrates that universal love is the most powerful force of creation, and secretly Sailor Moon knows this from the first final battle. That is why the rest of the forces (symbolized by the rest of the warriors) orbit around her and have the mission to defend her.
The sacrifice that the protagonist makes goes beyond leaving her normal girl’s life aside, since in her normal life she is more or less consciously governed by her power. She is not the most intelligent girl in school or the most serious, but she is undoubtedly an expert in meeting people and accepting them with an open heart, trusting in people’s kindness.
This would be the most important lesson in this series; however, we can find many more within this same lesson. It is interesting to see a series in which the princess is the one who, in the end, must save the prince and well, the whole world!
I personally consider myself a sailor, because if there is one thing I am convinced of, it is that there are values worth transforming and fighting for!
The mythology of the series is also quite interesting, especially when we look at the conception of the past, where the people of the Moon observed and cared for humanity, as a kind of gods who lived long lives in heavenly harmony. I ask myself how much of this story belongs to that story told a thousand times, by a thousand authors, which seems to be channeled over and over and over again.
*I’m fairly sure I will write and talk about this show again in this website; is what happens when you are an obsessed fan
