Sailor Moon (North American release)

A Parent's Guide to Anime
Rated: G
Suitable for Family Viewing

Review by Genevieve Petty

Sailor Moon is a magical girl anime series that has been incredibly popular in Japan. It centers around Tsukino Usagi (also known as Serena), a likeable but clumsy crybaby, who is also Sailor Moon, and her friends the Sailor Scouts. The premise is that centuries ago there was a kingdom upon the moon ruled by Queen Serenity that was attacked by the Negaverse and to protect her daughter and her court, Queen Serenity sent them into the future to Earth, without their memories. There are five series total that were produced for Japanese television, and the first series and half of the second were translated by DIC for American TV. There is no foul language, the violence is comic and the only nudity is implied in the stock transformation sequence (all of it retouched so that what you see is a flesh-coloured shape). There is kissing and romantic sequences, but nothing distasteful.

There are a total of fourteen Sailor Scouts by the end of the fifth series, who range from middle school through college age. Their outfits are based on the traditional sailor suits worn as uniforms in Japanese schools. Along with fighting the Negaverse, Usagi and her friends also go through the everyday rigors of being teenagers, including first love, school, parents and just being friends.

Only possible objections from some parents are that in the last series three new scouts are introduced who are male but transform into female scouts. And same sex relationships. In the Japanese version (not the DIC dub) there is a male-male couple, Zoisite and Kunzite (the DIC dub makes Zoisite female), and an implied female-female couple with Sailors Uranus and Neptune. Again, everything is quite tasteful and nothing is shown, but one does know that Zoisite and Kunzite are together, and the implication is that Uranus and Neptune are as well.

Parent's Guide Rating:

green (suitable for family viewing)