30 years later, re-examining the “Pretty Soldier”: A gender study analysis of Sailor Moon

Yatron, Cassandra

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/117272 Copy

Description

Title

30 years later, re-examining the “Pretty Soldier”: A gender study analysis of Sailor Moon

Author(s)

Yatron, Cassandra

Issue Date

2022-12

Keyword(s)

• Sailor Moon
• magical girl
• gender
• feminism
• queer

Abstract

December of 2021 marks the 30th anniversary of Naoko Takeuchi’s Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon (Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon) manga (1991-1997), and March of 2022 will mark the 30th anniversary of Toei Animation’s Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon anime (1992-1997). The series follows Sailor Moon as she defends Tokyo and the galaxy against alien enemies. While there seems to be controversy over whether Sailor Moon can be read as a feminist text, Sailor Moon still maintains its status as a feminist and queer magical girl series. Although there has been some scholarship on the magical girl genre and gender roles in manga and anime, there has not been much written about Sailor Moon specifically. As an influential series that is still relevant in pop culture, further analysis of this text is necessary to identify its feminist and queer nature. Despite being three decades old, Sailor Moon still maintains its status as a feminist and queer magical girl series. My argument is that on the surface, the Sailor Moon franchise appears to be a heteronormative and an (arguably) antifeminist series with traditional heterosexual relationships and gender stereotypes, but upon closer examination, the manga and anime series subvert patriarchal and gender stereotypes in both obvious and discrete ways.

Series/Report Name or Number

Journal of Anime and Manga Studies, vol. 3

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21900/j.jams.v3.948

Copyright and License Information

• Copyright 2022 Cassandra Yatron
• This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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