Category: Sailor Moonshine

All posts relating to the Sailor Moon franchise – whether it’d be manga, anime, live-action, or anything else that falls within said purview. Also featuring memes.

Quick Thoughts on Codename: Sailor V

I had been on-and-off reading the re-released Codename: Sailor V, the supposed prequel to the wider-known Sailor Moon manga, which has also been re-released. Reading the first few acts and recollecting my admittedly faint experiences with the (dubbed) anime, Sailor V comes off as being more of a prototype Sailor Moon than an actual prequel. Minako/Sailor V is as much of a slacker and lazy girl as Usagi/Sailor Moon was a crybaby and lazy girl. Both girls have loud abbrasive mothers that scream a lot. And both spend time at Crown. Some of the Sailor V supporting casts do bare slight resemblances to other better-known Moon characters (Hikaru-chan bares a strong resemblance to Ami/Sailor Mercury, the inspector-police is almost a dead ringer for Hino Rei-chan.)

But setting that aside, Codename: Sailor V has very little plot development at the beginning. It’s mostly episodic fare comprising Sailor V fighting off against pop idols working for a group called the Dark Agency while looking for first loves (many of which she’ll come across and have broken hearts over). There’s also bickering spats between Minako and Artemis, which are funny. There’s quite a bit of funny stuff to be found here and it does quite a bit to garner a chuckle.
Overall, I’m really digging this one. The initial Sailor V manga had always been something I wanted to get my hands on, even long before I began following the PGSM live series back in 2003. For what it is, it’s a pretty fun read that, if nothing else, provides a bare template for the Sailor Moon saga that would eventually be told… or something.
Now I need to find the first volume of said Moon saga.

Random Thoughts About… PGSM

Before anyone ask… YES, this is a genuine, honest to goodness post about Sailor Moon. Kindly fuck off if that isn’t your thing.

To tell you the truth, Sailor Moon wasn’t necessarily my thing, either. I’m not sure if I would even call it a thing. My only exposure to the franchise would’ve been ages ago when they aired the original anime on TV… that would be the original dub where they changed the names and made other edits for the sake of the children and made the talking black cat sound like an eldery British woman… which is funny when you consider that Luna is supposed to be around the same age as the other Sailor girls, but I digress.

I remember watching some Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon back when it was airing in 2003; mostly through grabbing as much fandubs as possible before it became a hassle for the bandwidth. I think I was up to the point where they introduced that weird girl with the unhealthy obsession with Usagi/Sailor Moon. And for some reason, I decided to revisit this series recently since there were some YouTube uploads. ‘Cause I figure… why not?

Let’s make one thing clear; I’m not a self-professed Moonie or anything like that. Even though I watched the series and own exactly one Sailor Moon game for the SFC (a puzzle game), I haven’t read the manga (though I should probably give it a shot now that it’s been re-released), have not seen any of the musicals, and my only recollection of the anime was the dubbed version with changed names and a female Zoisite… or something to that extent, it’s been a while.

However, I kinda gave PGSM a shot and I kinda liked it… it’s a bit cheesy and perhaps a bit tacky, but I thought it was a nice, well-told story with some good performances  (Miyuu is almost a perfect Usagi in a way, carefree and clumsy, but not obnoxious like in the dubbed anime) and lots of what they call ballet-fu… oh, they love their ballet-fu. I almost prefer ballet-fu than wire-fu. Fighting evil monsters with ballet is awesome stuff.

Oh yeah, and the girls were easy on the eyes. I mean that in a clean way, pervert.

Interesting change made here; all the girls are dark haired when they’re not in Sailor suits fighting rubber monsters. I actually like this change because it makes some semblance of sense in distinguishing between the Sailor Soldiers and their civilian counterparts. I always found it pretty stupid that, in other Sailor Moon media, people couldn’t tell that Sailor Moon and Usagi, for example, were the same person. The fact that both have the EXACT SAME HAIRSTYLE done in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY should have been a dead giveaway, but I guess Japan is dumber than Angel Grove. Different hair color isn’t much to discern difference between sailor and suit (their face is still pretty exposed), but it IS something… even if it cancelled out by the Sailor Soldiers calling each other out by name. But again…

Yeah, that’s all I got. Go figure.

DTM Gallery – Rejected Moon Montage

Some random clips of the “lost” Toonmakers’ Sailor Moon pilot make up the background while sad Moon from the 2003-2004 live drama sheds a tear. I don’t recall the actual date, but I’d imagine this was made during PGSM’s initial run, shortly after the debut of cat-turned-plush toy Luna in kid sailor fuku mode…

It’s safe to say that I wasn’t a fan of these kid characters because they’re generally done poorly, although in hindsight, calling Sailor Luna ugly when she was a kinda, sorta cute little kid may have been a bit much. It is what it is.

In hindsight, Sailor Luna was kinda cute and not ugly… so I don’t know where that came from.