January 18th, 2007
Update
- Jay Navok
Sailor Moon in Pop
Culture and around Japan
From Jay: We have a pair of guest updates today by two readers
living in Japan. Before we get to those, though, I wanted to mention two
other things readers sent in on a similar theme of Sailor Moon references.
First, reader Yatenkaiouh links
us to this product which has a morph that looks curiously similar to
Sailor Venus on the cover. Second, Yoshimoon sent this image from
Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner. He notes, "After investigating a haunted
hill called Kurisu-zaka in Ginza learn that the ghost appears during a full
moon. When you arrive there during a full moon a ghost car attacks you,
angered that you are messing with it. Before engaging it it says "In the
name of the Full Moon I will punish you!""
Brant, a reader in Okinawa, has been looking for
the show where he lives. Brant writes:
It was a nice, warm and sunny day today so I decided to take a walk to
the place where a pretty good Anime store recently moved out. I was hoping
that maybe, just maybe it was just a dream. I was walking down a narrow
street today right outside Gate 2 of my base. I had chosen to take a street
I've never gone down before. While thinking about how hungry I was, I
happened to look up at some windows of a "Kumon" (public English teaching
center) building and was surprised to see Sailor Moon and Luna looking back
at me! I've been all over this entire island within my 2 1/2 years here and
haven't seen anything Sailor Moon except for the occasional Gashapon
figurines at a few rinky-dink anime stores that sell mostly USED
paraphernalia! This was a rare find!
P.S. The good Anime store was closed... -_-'
Nice that he was able to spot that.
Reader Cordelia LeFay went looking for the show
near Kyoto. She writes:
I am currently working and living in Japan. I work for
one of the many English conversation schools, teaching Japanese of all ages.
I live in a town that is five minutes from Kyoto! However, I work in nearby
Shiga prefecture.
Since Sailor Moon is the reason I became interested in
Japan back when I was a wee lass, how anime is perceived/appreciated in
Japan really interests me. So, I thought I’d share a few observations with
you all!
First, Sailor Moon. My first Sailor Moon spotting came
when I was wandering around a tiny town called Yasu. I was in a
stationary/office supply store when I spotted a small PGSM pad on a bottom
shelf. I was really surprised! LOL
My second Sailor Moon spotting came when I wandered
into my local video rental store. They had a whole section of VHSs devoted
to our favorite Meatball Head and they even had VHSs of PGSM!! (Why VHS, I
have no idea). The video store was also very interesting because while one
half was video rentals, the other half was manga rentals! Too bad I can’t
read Japanese. *cries*
I have also visited an anime store called Animate in
Kyoto. It pretty much only has merchandise from the most recent popular
anime---Fullmetal Alchemist, Ouran Host High School, Bleach, Gundam Seed
etc. I was a little surprised here too---I didn’t see any hentai (I can
usually spot that stuff at the local convience stores, although I’m not an
expert on hentai!) but there was a whole wall dedicated to “boy love.”
*giggles* There were even posters of a live action movie called Boy Love.
LOL (But that’s not to say I watch/read a lot of yaoi---I guess you’ll just
have to take my word for it!) I bought two small packets of stickers and I
was disappointed to discover that anime stores are not much cheaper in
Japan! The two packets cost me 800 Yen which is about $6 American dollars.
Since I have Japanese students, I can also ask them
about anime. All the people I’ve spoken to remember Sailor Moon and they
think it’s cute that I “used to” watch it. I’ve asked them what they used to
watch and the most popular responses are Dragonball, Mobile Suit Gundam,
Ultraman and Anpan-Man. (Whomever can guess the ages and gender of these
students, you get a cookie!). I had never heard of Anpan-Man before, but
apparently he’s a superhero whose head is made of bread. When he sees a
hungry person, he rips off a part of his head and gives it to them to eat.
LOL
In general, I find the presence of anime in Japan not
much different from that of North America. You find Pokemon
merchandise at McDonalds. You may not see a lot of shoujo anime in North
America, but you’ll find Dragonball and Pretty Cure toys at
the supermarket in Japan. I’ve seen some merchandise for Bleach and
Naruto in the department stores. Although, on the other hand, the
shoujo manga Nana is pretty popular in Japan, and its second live
action movie is coming out this month at the movie theatre. So all and all,
that’s what I’ve observed so far. I hope to share some more interesting
stories with you all!
Many thanks to Brant and Cordelia for writing up
their experiences for us. As big of an impact as the series had in Japan,
Sailor Moon has been largely forgotten in the mainstream, so it's very nice
when we can find remaining examples of the phenomenon.
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