Sailor Moon Super S, written by Yoji Enokido et al. Directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara. Starring Kotono Mitsuishi, Aya Hisakawa, and Michie Tomizawa. Toei Animation (–). 39 episodes of 24 minutes (approx. 936 minutes).
Available from Viz Media.
Sailor Moon Super S, the fourth series of the Sailor Moon anime from the Nineties, is probably the weakest entry in the popular franchise. Built loosely on the “Infinity” arc of the manga, it focuses on Sailor Moon’s daughter from the future, Chibi-Usa. A microcosmic coming-of-age story, this arc is arguably important to Sailor Moon’s overall themes, but that doesn’t prevent it from being uneven—the primary reason for which is probably Chibi-Usa herself, whose presence in Sailor Moon is, even at the best of times, redundant.
Chibi-Usa earned a lot of hate from American viewers back in the Nineties due to the DiC dub. She is more popular in Japan, which is unsurprising given that country’s obsession with cuteness, mascot characters, and little girls. She is simultaneously a sidekick to Sailor Moon and a miniature version of her (she is actually called Sailor Chibi Moon), but although she appears best suited to a peripheral role, she has a habit of upstaging the rest of the cast—and in Super S, she takes over.
This is her arc, like it or not.
Summary
The story expands considerably on the material from the manga and also departs from it in many respects. In so doing, it loses some of the subtlety but is also able to develop its characters more thoroughly.
During a solar eclipse, an evil organization called the Dead Moon Circus gets free of its prison in the moon. At the same time, young Chibi-Usa, Sailor Moon’s daughter who has traveled back in time from the future (it’s complicated) begins having visions of a winged unicorn. This winged unicorn is called “Pegasus,” perhaps because the story’s creators think that is a generic term for a flying horse, or maybe because they’re just making a mythological reference.
(And incidentally, fantasy fans have in recent days decided that the term for a magical horse with both wings and a unicorn horn is “alicorn.” This usage was apparently coined by Piers Anthony and also got canonized in My Little Pony thanks to fan input. I kind of hate the term because—at least according to the internet—it originally referred to the material of a unicorn horn, but let’s get this bit of trivia out of the way nonetheless.)
Anyway, the evil Dead Moon Circus is on the hunt for Pegasus, but Pegasus lives in “beautiful dreams,” so much like the villains of the previous arc who were looking for “pure hearts,” these villains have to threaten random people, people with beautiful dreams, in the hunt for their McGuffin.
As the story develops, we eventually learn the true nature of Pegasus and why the Dead Moon Circus is after him; for anyone who has watched the previous series in the franchise, these revelations will hold few surprises.
The Amazon Trio
Also in keeping with the format of previous seasons, there are two sets of villains, each of whom occupy approximately half of the series. First, we meet three men called Tiger’s Eye, Hawk’s Eye, and Fish’s Eye, known as the “Amazon Trio,” which is curious because they’re male. Based on characters who appear only briefly in the comic, they are depicted in the cartoon as wannabe ladies’ men who drink heavily and only willingly chase people with “beautiful dreams” if they happen to be attracted to them.
Their depiction, while sometimes amusing, points up the overall weakness of this arc. As villains, they have no clear motivation: They always try to seduce their victims but consistently fail because their victims are put off by their ham-fisted come-ons. Thus frustrated, they simply take what they want anyway—making it less than obvious why the seduction was necessary. In previous arcs, when villains had to manipulate their victims, there was always a defined reason, no matter how far-fetched. Here, there is no reason.
Of these characters, Fish’s Eye gets the most attention from fans. Decidedly effeminate, he can pass for a woman (some have interpreted him as being able to change his sex, but that doesn’t appear to be the show’s intention) and chases after other men. This of course caused trouble for the old DiC localization, which had to reinterpret Fish’s Eye as female to make the show appropriate for young audiences.
In one of the most remarked-upon episodes, Fish’s Eye decides not to disguise himself as female but, as a man, goes after a male fashion designer who makes women’s clothing. Taken with Fish’s Eye’s feminine attributes, this fashion designer forgets about both his fianceé and his original artistic vision as he becomes a slave to Fish’s Eyes’s every whim.
This episode, again, caused trouble for DiC because Fish’s Eye repeatedly takes his shirt off—after DiC had decided he was female. So they had to turn around and alter the imagery to cover up the chest … of a man.
If you poke around the internet, a common interpretation is that this was a homosexual seduction, but that doesn’t match what’s actually depicted on-screen: The designer clearly becomes obsessed with Fish’s Eye as an artist. Their relationship is neither romantic nor erotic but is nonetheless destructive; I am reminded of a painter (the name escapes me) who repeatedly used a particular woman as a model and, when accused of having an affair, replied, “Hell no, I was painting.” This is a sentiment that no one without an artistic impulse can fully understand, but which this episode captures well, making it one of the best episodes in this arc.
Here we see a common problem with Sailor Moon fans: They focus on Teh Gay to the point that they can’t see anything else.
The Amazoness Quartet
After the sailor scouts deal with the Amazon Trio, they face the more formidable Amazoness Quartet, a group of childish young girls who are the opposite of the older men they replace. Although the anime is able to flesh out their personalities, it does away with their backstory established in the manga—which I think is a serious mistake, as this backstory ties together the major theme of this arc.
At the risk of spoiling, in the manga, it’s eventually revealed that the Amazonesses are actually sailor scouts, representing asteroids, who are under a hypnotic spell. Once freed, they pledge allegiance to Chibi-Usa and indicate they will later serve her in the same capacity that the inner scouts currently serve Sailor Moon.
Themes
Dynasty
In both the anime and manga, but especially the manga, this is the arc that establishes Sailor Moon’s dynasty. Sailor Moon begins the franchise as a spoiled and bratty girl, yet as the story progresses, she gains friends, a family, and a kingdom—and eventually becomes a goddess (“Sailor Cosmos”). The “Infinity” arc, although gratuitous at first blush, is actually vital because it secures her kingdom: When she passes on—not by dying, at least permanently, but by ascending to a higher role—there will be someone to take her place, her daughter, who is next in succession.
That is why this arc has one of the goofiest elements in the whole franchise, the oddball love story between Chibi-Usa and Pegasus, the talking horse who lives in her dreams. If the moon kingdom is to continue, Chibi-Usa also must be able to produce a successor. Although the anime makes it more ambiguous, in the manga, it is strongly implied that Pegasus (who can take a human form) will be her future husband.
Poking around the internet, I get the impression that some fans who first saw this as children have sentimental views of the relationship between Chibi-Usa and Pegasus, but many others find it creepy and weird, and I can’t blame them. These different attitudes, however, may hint that the show’s writers and animators got things right: This is a love story meant to appeal to a young, female audience, and it apparently does.
My own opinion is that this arc shows a surprising sensitivity for a franchise known mostly for loud noises and crass humor. Naoko Takeuchi, the creator of Sailor Moon, likes to make a lot of crude jokes, including ones sexualizing children, but she exhibits a surprisingly light touch here. Being in the form of a fantasy creature, Pegasus is non-threatening, and the nature of his relationship with Chibi-Usa, in the manga, is hinted but never stated outright. The anime is more explicit but nonetheless keeps everything chaste and low-key.
But that’s not to say it isn’t corny. Perhaps the most memorable sequence from this arc is a romantic montage, complete with a love ballad reminiscent of the Elton John song wedged into The Lion King. I’ve watched this sequence several times and never get tired of it, but only because it makes me laugh out loud—probably not the reaction the animators were going for.
C’mon, if you can’t laugh at that, you have no sense of humor.
Growing Up
The anime version downplays the previously described theme and instead turns this arc into a more prosaic coming-of-age story. It establishes that the members of the Amazoness Quartet, despite their kinky outfits, are trying to dodge adulthood and remain in a perpetual childhood—an effort that ultimately comes to reflect on the Dead Moon Circus as a whole.
Chibi-Usa, by contrast, tries to grow up too fast. The anime takes a gratuitous sequence from the manga, in which Sailor Moon and Chibi-Usa temporarily switch bodies, and use it to illustrate this: In the manga version, Sailor Moon—in a typical example of Takeuchi-sensei’s uncomfortable sense of humor—tries to use her temporary child body to seduce her boyfriend Tuxedo Mask; but the anime, wisely, eliminates that sequence and instead focuses on Chibi-Usa, who hopes her more adult form will impress Pegasus. She is, however, disappointed.
The over-arching theme of the anime’s version of this arc is that growing up is vital but should not be rushed—a wholesome if unremarkable message. Unfortunately, by bringing this theme to the foreground and placing questions of dynastic succession into the background, the anime divorces Super S from Sailor Moon as a whole, which is probably one of the reasons fans are cold to it.
Conclusion
According to what I have read, there was a method to the madness. Remember, when Sailor Moon Super S first appeared, the Sailor Moon franchise was hugely popular but still new; there was at that time no indication that it would remain a cultural juggernaut to this very day. Besides that, even though the previous series was particularly strong in its writing, the ratings were flagging. Unsurprisingly, the studio decided that Sailor Moon S, with its tale of angst-ridden and war-weary magical lesbians, was too adult. The purpose of Super S was to take the franchise back to its roots—entertainment aimed at young girls. A story of a little girl and her magical pony boyfriend gave the studio opportunity to do just that.
Personally, I like the greater development of Chibi-Usa and Pegasus’s relationship in the anime, but the move away from the dynastic theme and the dumping of the Amazoness Quartet’s backstory were major mistakes. The heavy focus on Chibi-Usa probably doomed Super S from the beginning to be the weakest series of the anime, but a few different decisions might have made it better than it is.
