Sailor Moon: The Klutzie-Crybaby-Kick-Ass-Princess...thing.

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!

Warned be ye.

What's a show without a protagonist? Generally speaking, SM had a group of protagonists, but this was the show's main Senshi. Serena/Usagi Tsukino was the daughter of a famous journalist (daddy) and a self-made house(mommy) with a Shingo, her annoying younger brother. By nature Serena(I grew up with the English version, so this is how I know her) was klutzie, a crybaby, a big eater, lazy and somehow unable to look fat, even when she gained several pounds and didn't exercise. Despite this torrent of vices she has on her, she also sports a big, almost saintly heart of gold, and a burning passion for her friends, and lots of love for those she cares for. Basically, she's a teenage girl Turned Up To 11.

But, as the astute reader will have guess, Serena is also the sailor soldier of love and justice, who will right wrongs and triumph over evil (thankfully that doesn't mean you) as the glorious Sailor Moon. The power was given to her by Luna, a talking cat with a crescent shaped mark (not a bald spot) on her forehead, claiming to come from the moon kingdom. Her reaction is understandable ("It's only a dream, it's only a dream") but the dream's officially over when she's handed a magical broach that lets her transform into a sailor-suited fighter, and told she has to fight monsters twice her size with magic powers that could easily kill her.

 

This is actually the crux of my argument in favor of the character. I'd cry too if some unholy snow-man-thing wanted to drain my soul from random parts on my body.

But Moonie's fortunes go even farther than that! For not only does she have to work with four other scouts, but she also finds out that she wasn't always a whiny school-girl. She was, in her past life, Princess Serenity of the same Moon Kingdom that Luna came from (but we're not supposed to know that til the middle of the show, so shhhh!) and, here and now, she's destined to become queen of the new world.

 Instantly this almost sounds like someone's bad fan fiction, doesn't it? Bratty girl with no real skills suddenly becomes the most important person on the planet with pretty pretty dress. And while I would normally agree, I let it slide in this case. As a show targeted for young girls, it would only make sense that the main character rises to be the most unique snowflake. It's a female play on the underdog principle that sports movies use, where the worst of the players rises to the top after a long period of work. And I guarantee that Serena goes through a gauntlet to reach the top, even if she forgot a good deal of it in the first season. I see this series as the journal of personal growth for the character from selfish-baby to loving authority figure.

    

(Relax ladies, his contract forbids permanent case of the kills.)

 From a feminist perspective, however, this doesn't bode well. Her mother is a homemaker, which is what she wants to be, and her ultimate achievement seems to be the birth of the antichrist of a daughter, with whom the rest of her time goes into. She needs to be rescued quite a bit by a man, namely Tuxedo Mask, and is highly ineffectual when compared to the other scouts who are athletic, feisty, smart and all those other things girls are supposed to aspire to me. It's the Disney princess argument in a way, as the wait for a prince becomes something worth scrutiny. Than again...is it really the same thing?

I don't think so myself. I believe me in choice, more than anything. For every Wonder Woman, there's more than enough room for Soccer Mom's. I don't think Usagi-chan is sending a bad message since she had wanted to be a house-wife to begin with, and now has a family of her own. Beyond that, she's been given a great deal of responsibility now anyhow, as Queen of Neo-Tokyo, and helps fight against the enemy trying take over the kingdom. In fact it was her that saved the world and united it together as is, so stopping to raise a family sounds like a well deserved vacation. Unlike early Disney girls, who's Beaus made the world  start working again, Serena was proactive and changed the world on pure effort.

So my final judgement on this character is fairly predictable.  She's my childhood hero, so I find myself unable to hate her and rushing to her defense out of Nostalgia. Still, these reflections have reminded me why I fell in love in the first place, and why she still holds up in my mind to this day. I feel most people don't give the girl credit, as they see the girl crying crocodile-tears as her friends are tossing fire and water about. I encourage a look at the journey, and to see that she has a vital place in the story, and is planned for great things. It just simply proves that you can never really tell where anybody goes in a story. So I shall be one of her shouting fans until I roll-over dead.

 

Next time-the brains of the show steps up to the spotlight!

Toodles!