Happy 30th Birthday Sailor Moon!

On this day 30 years ago on March 7, 1992, the superheroine anime series Sailor Moon debuted on TV Asahi in Japan.

The original run of the show, known in Japan as Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon -- later as Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon -- was produced by Toei Animation and was based on the outstanding manga series of the same name written by Naoko Takeuchi published from 1991 to 1997 in Nakayoshi.

The anime series was first aired in Japan on Saturday, March 7, 1992 with the first episode "The Crybaby: Usagi’s Beautiful Transformation" and would run until Saturday, February 8, 1997. Later the series would be dubbed into various territories around the world, including the United States where it would become intensely popular among animation fans at the time.

The English dubbing of Sailor Moon was first done by DIC Productions, L.P. (now Wildbrain) and the series premiered in Canada on August 28, 1995 on YTV and in first-run syndication in the United States on September 11th of the same year with the title of the first episode being renamed "A Moon Star Is Born".

Despite being cancelled after the first two seasons and being put in lousy time slots, thanks to a fan petition the English dub of the series would continue production and later go on to appear on the USA Network in 1997, and then later on Cartoon Network's weekly anime block Toonami in the late 90s and early 2000s -- fondly remembered by many anime fans today as the golden years of Toonami. 

The story of Sailor Moon is fairly simple. A 14-year-old underachieving young schoolgirl named Usagi Tsukino (Serena in the English dub) meets a magical talking cat named Luna. Luna gives Usagi  a magic wand and the ability to transform into her magical alter ego, Sailor Moon. Usagi is then tasked with locating the moon princess and battling the evil forces of the Dark Kingdom (the Negaverse in the English dub).

When Usagi transforms for the first time into her magical sailor suit with Luna's help, she overreacts and then reluctantly accepts her fate, not sure what has happened to her. At the time she does not know the enemies she will face, the friends she will make, or the experiences ahead of  her. All this despite the fact that she's a somewhat lazy underachiever, and more than just a bit clumsy at times.

As she moves forward in the series, she accepts her fate, finds allies with a core friend group of other girls with similar magical abilities, discovers true love with a dashing and mysterious male ally, and realizes the importance of fighting evil and defending the innocent -- all the while maintaining her charming (and admittingly annoying at times) young teenage demeanor.

All of this is a lot of pressure for a high school girl, obviously. This is made much more so as time goes on and she discovers the truth about her ultimate destiny (sorry no spoilers!). All the same the times when Usagi steps up and gets serious as Sailor Moon shows her growing into her role as defender of the Earth.

The series itself was largely brought over to the U.S. to capitalize on the success of shows like the widely popular Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV series.

In a way, Sailor Moon ran pretty much along the same basic superhero formula as Power Rangers: the bad guy sends a monster, Sailor Moon and her Sailor Scouts face it, do their power moves on said monster of the day, and then Sailor Moon uses her finishing move and vanquishes the creature; all the while dealing with some everyday teenage crisis which usually involves someone's relationship issues -- hey these are teenage girls we're talking about here.

Yet the story arcs are done so well that the series hooks you and then you find yourself waiting to see what happens next and how Sailor Moon and her friends are going to overcome their adversaries. The series -- particularly the first three seasons -- are charming and written very well.

Though the series is largely targeted towards female audiences, it does have a major following among male audiences as well -- your favorite blogger included.

So, is it weird for a guy to like a series targeted for girls? Well, even as a boy in the 80s I -- like many other boys of that generation who will admit to it -- watched cartoon shows like She-Ra: Princess of Power (largely due to the connection to He-Man: And the Masters of the Universe) on Saturday mornings.

The cartoons we watched as Gen-X kids in the 80s and early 90s were largely interchangeable with boys and girls enjoying a wide selection of shows regardless of how they were marketed. I've known just as many girls at that age who idolized Lady Jaye and Scarlett on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and just as many boys who knew all the characters on Strawberry Shortcake TV specials. As for me, I'll freely admit to jamming to all the Jem and the Holograms songs from time to time. 

Today as an anime fan (and a currently 45 year old pseudo-adult) I'll admit that a younger 19 year old version of yours truly first got hooked onto this series in the summer of 1996 during a boring summer following my first job after high school. I would come home from work and unwind in front of the television in time to see an episode of Sailor Moon in the late afternoon time slot when nothing else was worth watching other than talk shows, and became interested in what happened next. So much so that, when my work schedule changed, I set my VCR to record the episodes so I could watch them later.

Even though the series is pretty light-hearted, I admit that a couple of scenes in a few episodes hit me in the feels too. One death scene in particular in the season one episode: "Naru's Tears: Nephrite Dies for Love" ("A Friend in Wolf's Clothing" in the English dub) where one of Sailor Moon's antagonists, Nephrite, sacrifices himself to save one of Usagi's friends, Naru, and passes away in her arms after apologizing to her. Many fans of the series site that moment as one of the saddest of the series.

Naturally, as this show turned into probably my formal gateway into anime (actually Mobile Suit Gundam was my first official anime series, though I never got into it very deeply) other series eventually took over as favorites of mine, especially once I began watching late-nite Cartoon Network's Toonami block in the late 90s. Other shows like the ever-popular Pokemon series would eventually bring Japanese animation fully into the American mainstream.

All the same, Sailor Moon will always be remembered fondly by me and many other devoted anime fans as the one series that led us down the deep rabbit hole of Japanese animation.

Happy 30th Birthday, Sailor Moon -- Thank you for all the memories!

"Fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight,
never running from a real fight -- she is the one named
Sailor Moon."
Image courtesy of Toei Animation, Japan.