Sailor Moon 2001
Leda Billock
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She does not fit the patriarchal mould of leadership. She is female. She cries, a lot. She is the shortest Sailor Scout. She is not the smartest. She is not the bravest. She is not the fastest. In fact, she is not really any -est.
Her flaws show her vulnerability. Exposing vulnerability is a sign of strength, not weakness. It shows courage and builds an authentic perception of who you are. It shows that you cannot go it alone and that you rely just as much on your team as your team relies on you.
Throughout the series, her leadership is challenged by Sailor Mars who attempts to usurp her, believing she is unfit to lead. Despite their bickering, her leadership remains. The Scouts recognise that they are stronger together than divided. The one that keeps the togetherness is Sailor Moon.
As she takes on new enemies alongside the Sailor Scouts, Sailor Moon grows as a leader. Eventually overcoming some of her flaws, she matures as a warrior. Some of the things that may inhibit us as leaders we can overcome, others should not have been considered flaws to begin.
Her vision, which most of you may be familiar with, is to "right wrongs and triumph over evil." She fights on behalf of the moon, love, and justice. She and the Sailor Scouts fight to bring peace to Earth.
Sailor Moon is the Princess of the Moon Kingdom, known as Serenity. She is destined to become Neo-Queen Serenity, queen of the Silver Millennium. In their past lives, the other Sailor Scouts held the task of guarding and supporting Sailor Moon.
In a moment of desperation, she gives up. Having lost her soul mate to an evil force, she refuses to let her friends fall victim by going after him. What follows is an exchange which is the definition of influence over authority:
She shows compassionate leadership that "begins with the intention to see as others see and feel." She leads through empathy, understanding why someone is thinking and feeling something, taking care of others by reducing his or her suffering. Her leadership stems from compassion for those around her, not authority.
Every single one of the Sailor Scouts has failed. Whether it is during their day-to-day lives, or while fighting evil forces from the Negaverse. They lose, a lot; especially when taking on enemies by themselves.
Despite this, Sailor Moon remains resilient. Knowing that alone she may not be powerful enough, she continues to enter battles with enemies. She fails, and she fails often. Over time, she learns how to fight and use her powers to their full capacity.
In Sailor Moon R - The Movie, Usagi has been defeated. She is atop of an asteroid hurtling towards Earth, surrounded by her wounded Sailor Scouts and enemy, Fiore. To protect those she loves, Sailor Moon unleashes the power of the silver crystal - energy she knows will kill her.
The Scouts rise, struggling with the last of their power to join her. To unite and share her burden they kneel before her and lend their power. They each have flashbacks of how Usagi has been selfless and nurturing towards them - from complimenting Sailor Mars' demanding work ethic to showing genuine appreciation and envy towards meeting the legendary Sailor Venus for the first time (irrespective of a hierarchy).
Sailor Moon starts off her journey as an individual contributor. With the support of her cat companion, Luna, she begins taking on enemies by herself. Admittedly, she is clumsy and scared throughout her battles. She learns to fight and overcome her fears in the name of her vision.
It's not until the eighth episode that the second Sailor Scout (Sailor Mercury) is discovered and episode 33 when the final Inner Senshi (Sailor Venus) joins the group. It's then that Sailor Moon begins solidifying herself as a leader.
For dedicated Sailor Moon fans, we see her transform into Neo-Queen Serenity. Throughout her journey, she overcomes her flaws, sacrificing herself endlessly while influencing a team of superheroes to fight for her vision.
Sappho, the lyric poet from 700 B.C.E., is famous for writing about loving women and beauty, though much of her original work has been lost. Largely what we can read today are fragments of what we assume are longer poems.
You\u2019re reading a guest post on PopPoetry by Laura Eppinger. Laura Eppinger (she/they) knows that the Jersey Devil is real. Laura\u2019s work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize as well as Best of the Net. Learn more at lauraeppinger.blog.
Every entry in R. Sikoryak\u2019s comic book series Masterpiece Minicomics (tagline: Where classics and comics collide!) is worth a read. Entries include Walt Whitman drawn in the style of Marvel Comics and illustrations of the poetry of Emily Dickinson drawn in a cozy mystery setting of an old Gothic manor. The most recent comic in this series is Sappho: Pretty Poet, in which the ancient Greek poet is drawn like the world-famous manga superhero Sailor Moon, the creation of Japanese manga artist Naoko Takeuchi.
Fear not, fellow feminists: Sikoryak isn\u2019t reducing the poet to her surface features. Sailor Moon sometimes uses the title \u201CThe Pretty Guardian,\u201D so in this world, Sappho is \u201CThe Pretty Poet.\u201D
\u201CTo An Uncultured Woman,\u201D translated by John Addington Symonds, where Sappho grapples with the fact that even the most beautiful, beloved woman will one day die. But in this representation, Sappho experiences both regret and surprise with Sailor Moon\u2019s emotive face.
\u201CA Girl in Love,\u201D translated by Thomas Moore, portrays Sappho as too distracted by love and desire to work her loom or do any housework. Sappho\u2019s tantrum on the floor is exactly what Usagi, a.k.a. the teen girl alter ego of Sailor Moon, would do if she were too lovesick to complete her chores.
\u201COne Girl,\u201D translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, presents an image rich in double entendre: the speaker muses about the apple on the highest bough of a tree, which is desired most even though (or because) it is unattainable. This post will explore the queerness of both texts, offering one way to interpret this image of the unattainable desire.
We don\u2019t have any historical record suggesting that Sappho was a clumsy teen who loved snacks and her pet cat Luna. Still, both Sailor Moon and Sappho look in wonder at the moon, surround themselves with a band of girls and young women, and value romantic love so much that they make it their life\u2019s work. (One fights villains in the name of the moon to protect love, and the other composed poetry about love and lovers that has intrigued readers for thousands of years.)
It\u2019s also worth noting that I can read both Sailor Moon manga and the poetry fragments of Sappho because these works have been translated. Both texts come to the English-speaking world from different languages and cultures. Thank you to the translators of the world!
That said, even when these works are rendered in English, there may be some deeper philosophies or cultural scripts that I wouldn\u2019t understand right away. Last year I read all of the essays in Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson just to better understand one single Sappho line. The ancient Hellenic concepts of frigid indifference and hot, flexible, flowing love were at work in Sappho\u2019s image of \u201Clove, loosener of limbs,\u201D and I\u2019d had no idea!
The 1990s Sailor Moon animated series was the first anime I ever watched, as an English-speaking white American kid with no idea that the show was originally made in Japan. My sister and I were so obsessed that we woke up at 6 a.m. on Saturdays to catch this airing on TV; still, we puzzled over some of the images that didn\u2019t quite make sense to us. Sailor Moon loves food, but we often didn\u2019t recognize what she was eating. The 1990s dubbed version of this anime translated rice balls as \u201Cdonuts,\u201D but our kid brains knew that those weren\u2019t donuts!
But these small moments of confusion never stopped us from loving Sailor Moon. We felt a connection to other essential parts of the story and its characters anyway. Illustrations help! In this way, Sikoryak\u2019s Sappho: Pretty Poet serves as a bridge to understanding, sometimes pointing to a visceral emotion or reaction, superseding a need for concepts to be spelled out in words. When both Sailor Moon and Sappho are drawn as experiencing lovesickness, boredom, and enthusiasm, they feel like real people. They feel like friends.
In her time and in the centuries after her death, Sappho\u2019s lines were frequently referenced and praised for being the standard for lyric poetry (poems set to music). Also after death: The poet herself was derided, supposed to be a prostitute because of her deep knowledge of seduction, or presumed to be a stereotypical resident of the allegedly-promiscuous island of Lesbos. After antiquity, the empire of Christianity hid or destroyed manuscripts of Sappho\u2019s poetry after deeming it sinful. Later still, scholars of the Victorian era rediscovered Sappho but went to great lengths to excuse or ignore the fact that a woman was writing sensual, sexual, and romantic poetry to and about women.
It may be too heavy-handed to say that some Sailor Moon characters have \u201CSapphic vibes,\u201D but the vibes were always there. In later series, Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune are openly in a romantic relationship, though this was censored or removed from the show in the 1990s. Enough hints and subtext were preserved, however, that a generation of readers and viewers picked up on the romance even if it wasn\u2019t clearly stated. In the newest Sailor Moon content, queer relationships are explicitly named.
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