"Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon"

Princess Alice · 2018-03-21 15:42:45

Why is it that you can outright admit your main characters are effectively child soldiers, but it's somehow way less horrific if they fight with magic instead of muggle weapons?

Imipolex G · 2018-03-21 15:44:13

you figured it out

Aliroz · 2018-03-21 15:46:27

Because seven-year-old Rozzy would rather not read about child protagonists going through PTSD again.

Princess Alice · 2018-03-21 15:49:06

I mean, if you count Youma as people, our 14-year-old protagonist already has quite a kill count even by the end of the Jadeite arc.

Tachyon · 2018-03-21 16:01:48

yeah that show was pretty brutal, Usagi outright disintegrates a lot of her early enemies

also 'snail woman in the station wagon should crash and die'

every now and then i see people talking about how the series was gentler than DBZ and how Usagi mostly wins her enemies over with the power of love or friendship or w/e and i wonder if they ever sat down and watched the series (tho i guess you could partially form that impression by skipping the small fry youma and only counting the recurring antagonists)

it's also pretty striking after watching Madoka if you keep that show in mind while rewatching the first episode of Sailor Moon. how Luna basically just shows up and tells Usagi she is a soldier now, no ifs no buts that's just how it is. later on we find a bit more about the reasons for this and it seems less arbitrary but yeah

Princess Alice · 2018-03-21 16:10:12

On a mostly unrelated, but "I'm thinking about it, so I'll post it" note, watching Minako (as Sailor V) capture petty crooks solely to antagonize the actual police is quite amusing.

Tachyon · 2018-03-21 16:15:44

oh, there's also the time in the anime (late season 1 iirc) where Usagi fully intends to Moon Tiara Action (i.e. disintegrate) a police officer-turned-youma because she dated the man Minako loved, before she is stopped by Minako

she's a scary one

Sredni Vashtar · 2018-03-21 17:00:11

Magical girl shows can be kind of hardcore sometimes, and I think in that respect, Madoka Magica was really true to the roots of that branch of the style.

Klinotaxis · 2018-03-21 17:35:02

i can't find the cap but my fave (as someone who has not sailored):

screenrant.com said:
Takeuchi published her liner notes in various volumes of the manga and revealed one very interesting fact about her initial notes for Ami. Before Ami was fleshed out, Sailor Mercury wasn’t a teenage girl with a genius level IQ. Instead, she was a cyborg, which is why she was so smart and good with technology. Takeuchi’s plan was to have Cyborg Sailor Mercury be killed in the final battle of the first manga arc, her cybernetic limbs removed one by one until she was destroyed. Takeuchi’s editor nixed the idea with the instructions that none of the girls were allowed to die and that robots were out of place.