Sailor Moon Vol. 1 : Review

Usagi Tsukino is a normal girl until she meets up with Luna, a talking cat, who tells her that she is Sailor Moon. As Sailor Moon, Usagi must fight evils and enforce justice, in the name of the Moon and the mysterious Moon Princess. She meets other girls destined to be Sailor Senshi (Sailor Scouts), and together, they fight the forces of evil!

Summary from GoodReads (here)

Title: Sailor Moon
Author: Naoko Takeuchi
Pub­lisher: Kodansha Comics
Release Date: September 13, 2011 (Get it @ Ama­zon)
For­mat Read: Print
Print Length: 240 pages
Series: Sailor Moon (Volume One)

The first volume of Sailor Moon begins with 14-year-old Usagi finding a cat named Luna. When trouble arises, Luna grants Usagi the ability to transform into Sailor Moon, to defeat the evil attacking Tokyo’s residents. It is here that Sailor Moon has her first run-in with the mysterious Tuxedo Mask. Unable to decide if he is friend or foe, Luna remains wary of Tuxedo Mask, while Sailor Moon is inexplicably drawn to him. The following three chapters revolve around the introductions of more Sailor Senshi, as well as their civilian counterparts. Sailor Mercury, Mars and Jupiter are introduced, while Tokyo continues to be attacked by negative forces. Sailor Moon is again and again thrown into situations where Tuxedo Mask comes to her aid, and along with haunting dreams of her name being called that she can’t remember much of upon waking, Sailor Moon is more confused than ever.

I am far from a new Sailor Moon fan, but it was with great eagerness that I awaited this new translation of Sailor Moon. For many young girls like myself, the addition of Sailor Moon to the Toonami block on Cartoon Network created a whole new set of fans. I started watching the anime at some random point in the show, and quickly realized that to my dismay, the episodes aired were actually very very short. Determined to get a bigger fix of my newest love, I took to the internet. Sailor Moon, for me created a great many firsts – first anime, first manga, website, chatrooms – it’d created a monster.

Suddenly there was a ‘cartoon’ that had a continuing story line - something I’d never experienced before. Unfortunately at my age, I didn’t have enough money to buy the manga and desperately read summaries of the volumes instead. It was there that I discovered a great many translation changes had been made. Serena’s name was actually Usagi? Darien was supposed to be Mamoru? Some of these changes infuriated me as a kid, and to some extent still do to this day (ahem, Haruka & Michiru) so the return to the roots with the newest translation has me giddy with excitement. Finally, Sailor Moon as it was meant to be read, censorship be darned.

The new translation returns Usagi to her rightful name – no “Bunny” or “Serena”, with the rest of the cast returning to their original japanese names as well. The manga reads right to left, without the flipped drawings that were in the previous translation. Minor things have been updated to show updates in technology, such as a floppy disk becoming a CD. These updates are handed down from a recent rerelease of the Sailor Moon manga over in Japan, and are completely unnoticeable if you aren’t looking for them. Honorifics have been preserved well for the most part, although I did cringe a little at a ‘Princess-sama’ moment. A minor complaint is that names have been swapped around to english format, of First Name, Last Name rather than kept to their original Last Name, First Name, however this is a pretty common thing to do when translating manga over.

If you have before only been a fan of the Sailor Moon anime, it is a HUGE recommendation that you pick up the Sailor Moon manga. The manga has a much smaller age gap between Usagi and Mamoru. Instead of Mamoru being in college while Usagi is in middle school, Mamoru is a scant 2-3 years older in High School to her Middle School. The relationship between Usagi and Mamoru flows much more naturally and not occurring only at the end of the first season, with Mamoru discovering who Usagi is at an earlier stage. The anime seems to have played up Usagi’s “stupidity” to a higher extent, and the first volume alone already has Luna praising Usagi for her insights.