Prologue

Walk down any street in America and ask ten strangers if they've heard of Sailor Moon. The majority will probably say yes. If they're under 40, they'll all say yes.

Right now I can think of five comic book characters far more "famous" none of those ten strangers could identify.

Although most people have heard the name Sailor Moon, they probably don't know what she made possible. For example, those five famously unidentified comic book characters wouldn't be quite as famous nor would they have made their creators quite as financially well-off if it weren't for Sailor Moon.

This animated television series and the manga it is based on have influenced cultures around the world. In America, there were so many creative people and properties affected by Sailor Moon it is difficult to keep an accurate account.

The story of Sailor Moon is a story of contrasts: The unlikeliest of superheroes, cosmic levels of success followed by inexplicable obscurity, and a second chance that may very well have been the greatest one-presidential-term comeback in entertainment history.

It is a story of two groups of fans, at once divided and joined by a common inspiration. It is the story of a character that baffled parents by causing brothers to sit down next to their sisters every afternoon so they could quietly watch television together.

It is the story of a team of heroic girls who changed the course of the entertainment business in ways like nothing else has before or since. Unimaginable fortunes have been made in the new world these characters helped shape.

Sailor Moon is the heroic epic of Japan. It has the same cultural significance to the Japanese people as Star Trek does to Americans. Usagi Tsukino's mannerisms are as recognizable as Captain James T. Kirk's. Any Japanese person would recognize her classic "triumph over evil" pose as easily as any American would recognize the starship Enterprise.

It is for that reason that Sailor Moon may very well be the greatest post-Meiji east-west ambassador since Richard Nixon. In her adventures, record numbers of Americans, Canadians, Europeans and Australians found something they couldn't quite explain, but that has compelled them to watch, read and celebrate for over twenty years. I believe what they found was an expression of heroism, love and courage recognizable to all cultures.

I found Sailor Moon where most Americans did. One afternoon I happened to have Cartoon Network on while I was housecleaning. I know, it sounds like a thrilling moment of serendipity, but bear with me. There was a marathon of episodes in progress called the "Lunar Eclipse." As I worked, I glanced at the show occasionally. At the time, like most Americans I had heard the name, but I really had little idea what it was.

Within 20 minutes, my glances had given way to me sitting there watching episode after episode. Two years later, I was working for the company that brought the show to the United States.

To be fair, I had a number of advantages older fans didn't. I found the show during its Silver Age. I didn't have to endure the literally dark days when I would have had to set my alarm for 5:00 AM to see the next episode. I also had the benefit of some very dedicated fans who built web sites which served as a fine guide to someone unfamiliar with the characters or the show's premise.

What I came away with was a better understanding of subjects quite close to my soul. As a scholar of letters, my formal study of the heroic epic gave me a context for understanding the characters. I knew why they were so important to fans. As a writer, I saw in Takeuchi-sensei's work a superior understanding of the classic heroic balance between simple humanity and the loving, courageous act of transcending vulnerability. Sailor Moon was like her fans and gave them hope they could overcome challenges just like she did.

Perhaps no less important is what Sailor Moon made possible. In this book I will make the case that without Sailor Moon, the entertainment landscape of the 21st century so far would be very different. There are billion-dollar comic book franchises that simply would not exist at anything approaching their current success levels were it not for events Sailor Moon set in motion in the early 1990s.

As a result of my further marketing work, I also came to understand bringing the animated series to the United States was a tremendous risk. The majority of that risk was borne by one man whose contributions to the show and what followed should not be underestimated. His was the pioneering spirit that told American culture there was room for a girl in the pantheon of heroes. This man bet his company and reputation on that belief, and won.

The cable television landscape in the late 1990s changed dramatically as a result of Sailor Moon's influence. A four billion dollar industry arose from what by the turn of the century most had dismissed as a lost opportunity. And then, some little creatures called "pocket monsters" turned that four billion dollar industry into a planet-wide shockwave of merchandising that has yet to subside. Revenues in the eleven figures followed, reshaping everything from television to video games to Broadway.

Chances are, anything you like today has been either influenced by or made possible by Takeuchi-sensei's magnum opus. Games like World of Warcraft and Stardoll, television shows like My Little Pony, The Powerpuff Girls and H2O Just Add Water, movies like The Avengers and The Incredibles, books like The Hunger Games and The Lightning Thief: All of them had a straighter and smoother road to success as a result of what this television series accomplished.

Sailor Moon is Japan's triumph. After the unprecedented success of their business enterprises in the 1980s, Japanese entertainment companies took what Chuck Jones, Walt Disney and Charles Schulz had accomplished, brought it up to 21st-century technological standards, gave it super powers and shipped it back to the United States where it captivated two generations of children and made their parents wish they didn't really have to collect them all.

In the space of only forty years, a nation had emerged from the ruins of the most catastrophic war in human history, rose to economic prominence on the world stage and stood alone astride an entertainment empire with no equal, past or present. They had out-disneyed Disney, put video games directly in the hands of hundreds of millions of children, covered entire walls in bookstores with new and exciting stories, paved the way for comic book characters to be credible as film stars and made a clumsy middle school student with long blond ponytails the ambassador of cool.

Sailor Moon changed the world.


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