In defense of Naoko Takeuchi.

[SM458]

Some people here are just too salty.

 

[Talentless Fool]

At this point you've basically had to admit that the story is still continuing and that it has yet to continue some more. At any rate, your point about Saint Seiya not having a rushed ending was untrue.

Sailor Moon did tie its bow, it's just that you seem to personally dislike how it did so because it left its lore ambiguous. Saint Seiya, the original manga, did not tie anything up, not even its own storyline, and it's taking over three decades to slowly and redundantly do what it originally said it would, all while having dozens of contradictory spin-offs left and right. If you think that's a better state of affairs for a series, that's your take and you're welcome to it, but I think people who aren't familiar with Saint Seiya should really get all the facts before jumping onto the "Takeuchi should be like Kurumada" bandwagon.

I'm more on the 'Takeuchi should retire and enjoy afternoon J-dramas while having Royal Tea milk and wearing her Jimmy Choo red high heels' bangwagon.

The story didn't need to continue but Kurumada decided to do so.
Like I said, the reason why Saints exist is to engage in a war against Hades, the guys in Saint Seiya break the cycle by killing him.
It's an end, left with possibilities for sequels via the other Gods (something that Kurumada purposely put in his work).

 

[BillyKonstantine]

Naoko can write and draw whatever she wants but damn , please let the animation people do their thing. They made the 90s anime what it was.

 

[kasumigenx]

I'm more on the 'Takeuchi should retire and enjoy afternoon J-dramas while having Royal Tea milk and wearing her Jimmy Choo red high heels' bangwagon.

The story didn't need to continue but Kurumada decided to do so.
Like I said, the reason why Saints exist is to engage in a war against Hades, the guys in Saint Seiya break the cycle by killing him.
It's an end, left with possibilities for sequels via the other Gods (something that Kurumada purposely put in his work).

The manga on the franchise she really has complete rights over is Sailor V.

 

[Psajdak]

She has made millions from fans of her work.
Either she does her job (like ALL of her peers who haven't retired) and makes a new manga (whether it's Sailor Moon or not), and participates to the revival by adding notes to the plot-points left unanswered or she retires.

Look, as far as I am concerned, Sailor Moon anime would have never ended, each decade would have it's own adaptation / reboot similar to Gegege no Kitaro; it would have been a franchise that always has anime going on...

But that's just unrealistic.

For what is worth, Takeuchi wrote / drawn in secret tons of new Sailor Moon content, but refuses to reveal it.
And she can do it.

Choose with your wallet, or something.

 

[Rika-Chicchi]

For what is worth, Takeuchi wrote / drawn in secret tons of new Sailor Moon content, but refuses to reveal it.

In which the Senshi have upgraded from their Eternal form to their Roach form.

 

[Jawshx]

If she decided that she does not want to draw or remain active as a mangaka… what is the problem with that?

If she decided to devote the little time she has to try to adapt her existing work into an anime… again… what is the problem with that?

If she likes high-end fashion and cars and has the money to afford these things, how does that become someone else’s problem?

Nobody is being forced to watch a 1:1 manga adaptation.

Nobody is being forced to buy Sailor Moon merchandise.

Um, where in my post did I say any of those things?

What I was saying was that the intent behind it is very sweet but Togashi and Takeuchi’s styles are wildly different. Naoko is a shoujo manga artist while Togashi is a shounen manga artist. Yes, there are rumors that she helped him with drawings certain parts of the HunterxHunter manga but her drawing the rest of the manga to the end? It doesn’t sound realistic to me. You only need to look at some of the pages from the HunterxHunter manga to see that, I think.

Naoko has gone on record as saying making manga and making deadlines was highly stressful and traumatic for her. Her lack of output since Sailor Moon ended reflects that. I’m neither saying it’s bad nor good but that I highly doubt she’d put herself in such a vulnerable situation again.

Anyway, what’s wrong with saying she’s a better organizer than a manga-ka these days? She’s strong-willed, a business woman that knows what she wants. She probably has the connections and know-how to get HunterxHunter finished by bringing other people on board to help.

Naoko to me is sort of like Madonna. Is she the greatest artist of all time? Obviously not. But does that even matter? She still made an empire by being savvy and I respect her for that.

 

[Clow]

Um, where in my post did I say any of those things?

What I was saying was that the intent behind it is very sweet but Togashi and Takeuchi’s styles are wildly different. Naoko is a shoujo manga artist while Togashi is a shounen manga artist. Yes, there are rumors that she helped him with drawings certain parts of the HunterxHunter manga but her drawing the rest of the manga to the end? It doesn’t sound realistic to me. You only need to look at some of the pages from the HunterxHunter manga to see that, I think.

Naoko has gone on record as saying making manga and making deadlines was highly stressful and traumatic for her. Her lack of output since Sailor Moon ended reflects that. I’m neither saying it’s bad nor good but that I highly doubt she’d put herself in such a vulnerable situation again.

Anyway, what’s wrong with saying she’s a better organizer than a manga-ka these days? She’s strong-willed, a business woman that knows what she wants. She probably has the connections and know-how to get HunterxHunter finished by bringing other people on board to help.

Naoko to me is sort of like Madonna. Is she the greatest artist of all time? Obviously not. But does that even matter? She still made an empire by being savvy and I respect her for that.

My apologies. I mistakenly quoted your post. I clicked the wrong button. It was a mistake from my part.

I agree with what you have written.

 

[Talentless Fool]

Look, as far as I am concerned, Sailor Moon anime would have never ended, each decade would have it's own adaptation / reboot similar to Gegege no Kitaro; it would have been a franchise that always has anime going on...

But that's just unrealistic.

For what is worth, Takeuchi wrote / drawn in secret tons of new Sailor Moon content, but refuses to reveal it.
And she can do it.

Choose with your wallet, or something.

Or she could do what she was doing before Crystal - laze out at home, sipping tea, she could get a pet cat or Dalmatian, continue to enjoy royalties and collabs with brands for expensive jewelry and clothes and make 1 sketch each year for her fanclub.
In turn, she lets the anime staff do what they want with the story for alteast one attempt at a good re-imagination of her manga with her only demand being that the director and music composer are passionate people about Sailor Moon?

I would be more than satisfied with that.

 

[Psajdak]

Or she could do what she was doing before Crystal - laze out at home, sipping tea, she could get a pet cat or Dalmatian, continue to enjoy royalties and collabs with brands for expensive jewelry and clothes and make 1 sketch each year for her fanclub.
In turn, she lets the anime staff do what they want with the story for alteast one attempt at a good re-imagination of her manga with her only demand being that the director and music composer are passionate people about Sailor Moon?

I would be more than satisfied with that.

In that case, stop wasting time, go visit her in Japan, tell her everything that you wrote to all of us here, and bring her on the right path.

 

[MsImagination]

I think a lot of the criticism I've read on this forum in general comes down to fan expectations vs. creator intent...

First off, just to frame what I'm about to argue, let's just admit that Takeuchi created Sailor Moon. Yes, she was tasked by editors and execs and toymakers and so on with creating it, and they gave her prompts as to what to add into her story, but at the end of the day, it was her story and it was always credited as such. You may like the anime adaptation more and that's fine, but let's not rewrite history either and pretend that Sailor Moon was created by Ikuhara or whomever happened to adapt your favorite version of Takeuchi's story.

In this thread, people criticize Takeuchi because she won't let new a new anime, spin-off or product be made without her input and she won't let the franchise continue. But the thing is, why should this be an ongoing franchise to begin with? Sure, Takeuchi is more than happy to license her characters to appear in virtually every possible product to make money, but for decades she's been adamant in having everything she licenses be made within the scope of the story she started and finished, and I think as an author it's obvious she simply does not want that story to be continued because it's over.

If we look at the story Takeuchi wrote, warts and all, she made an effort to wrap everything together in a definitive way. The Dark Kingdom arc (where she wanted to end things originally) reveals the characters' past and the Black Moon arc their futures. You could argue the story was fully explored with just those two, and so the Infinity arc expands the action outside of the characters we know into invaders and guardians from beyond, the Dream arc goes inside these characters and expands the lore, and then Stars ties everything together with a cosmic loop. The story is deliberately left with nowhere else to go, we already know the past, present and future. Seldom do stories have such definitive endings.

Of course, Takeuchi wasn't a great storyteller and there are dozens of unexplained events and plot elements that would be interesting to see more of (or at all...), but the main story was done and I understand her desire to keep it finished. Not everything has to be a never-ending franchise. I don't see people criticizing authors for not wanting to write endless sequels for their books (just like I don't see people claiming the editors who prompted authors to write are the actual creators of a book...), so why do people have a different expectation for Takeuchi?

I think it's safe to say that's because a lot of people don't care for her story that much, they care about the 90s anime and want more of it. But we already got 200 episodes and three movies where it also thoroughly explored past, present, future. I'd rather keep it finished than dragging it out of its grave for some hackneyed spin-off or sequel. I understand we live in the age of reviving old series to pander to nostalgia, and if you want that that's fine, but I think it's not unreasonable to see things from a creator's perspective in that her story is already told.

Everybody brings up how Takeuchi disliked the 90s anime, but nobody notes that she disliked certain changes while liking others (like the Dark Kingdom finale). She's not some crazy purist who got the rights to her story and then didn't let anybody else do anything with it, she has actively participated in the creation of the live action adaptation and the musicals. Yes, we have Crystal, but we also have a bunch of different takes on her story by different authors and performers and she seems to enjoy giving others the opportunity to play around with her story, if she was so reclusive she wouldn't do this.

If there's a huge fault with her I'd say it's her Japan-centric approach to releasing Sailor Moon works. We know she has hindered the releases of the manga/anime in several overseas territories because they weren't up to her standards or simply for reasons nobody can figure out, and if things get cancelled or dragged out abroad she doesn't care at all. Things like PGSM have been Japan-exclusive for ages for no good reason. Thankfully, PNP seems to be taking international fans more into account in small ways, but we still got the short end of the stick for years.

So TL;DR: like it or not, Takeuchi had a story and she's done telling it.

Honesty thank you for writing this.You put this the exact words and very good

 

[Memento]

Everybody brings up how Takeuchi disliked the 90s anime, but nobody notes that she disliked certain changes while liking others (like the Dark Kingdom finale). She's not some crazy purist who got the rights to her story and then didn't let anybody else do anything with it, she has actively participated in the creation of the live action adaptation and the musicals. Yes, we have Crystal, but we also have a bunch of different takes on her story by different authors and performers and she seems to enjoy giving others the opportunity to play around with her story, if she was so reclusive she wouldn't do this.

Also, for the billionth time, the producers of La Reconquista explicitly stated in an interview that Naoko gave them total creative freedom. She has no objection to new takes on her story. But *she* was the one who pursued Toei to do a new anime adaptation, and given all the changes the original anime made to her story, I think it's insane to begrudge Naoko wanting at least one anime that was faithful to her story as written (even if it fell short of that goal IMO)

 

[Maraviollantes]

Naoko can write and draw whatever she wants but damn , please let the animation people do their thing.

Animation people:

Spoiler: show

 

[kasumigenx]

If there's a huge fault with her I'd say it's her Japan-centric approach to releasing Sailor Moon works. We know she has hindered the releases of the manga/anime in several overseas territories because they weren't up to her standards or simply for reasons nobody can figure out, and if things get cancelled or dragged out abroad she doesn't care at all. Things like PGSM have been Japan-exclusive for ages for no good reason. Thankfully, PNP seems to be taking international fans more into account in small ways, but we still got the short end of the stick for years.

So TL;DR: like it or not, Takeuchi had a story and she's done telling it.

She should realize that the majority of her fanbase is overseas and not in Japan.

 

[MsImagination]

She should realize that the majority of her fanbase is overseas and not in Japan.

I don't think it matters that much.

Also, for the billionth time, the producers of La Reconquista explicitly stated in an interview that Naoko gave them total creative freedom. She has no objection to new takes on her story. But *she* was the one who pursued Toei to do a new anime adaptation, and given all the changes the original anime made to her story, I think it's insane to begrudge Naoko wanting at least one anime that was faithful to her story as written (even if it fell short of that goal IMO)

Exactly why are people upset that she might wanted close adaptation.Lot of authors want close or least closer adaptations of his works.Evan Stephen King made a version of the shinning.Even though it was most people think it was subpar.Still it was his story.

 

[Masquerade]

She should realize that the majority of her fanbase is overseas and not in Japan.

The whole Japanese entertainment industry has a very domestic mindset, so I wouldn't put the blame on her for thinking SM is strictly a "women's brand."

 

[kasumigenx]

The whole Japanese entertainment industry has a very domestic mindset, so I wouldn't put the blame on her for thinking SM is strictly a "women's brand."

Some mangaka like CLAMP, Arina Tanemura, and Bisco Hatori even if they are popular in japan, are very accommodating to their foreign fans, especially their western fans, and even have foreign releases of manga that are better than the domestic releases or have something that does not exist in domestic releases so I don't think that it would be a stretch if she considers the fans outside of japan.

 

[MsImagination]

In that case, stop wasting time, go visit her in Japan, tell her everything that you wrote to all of us here, and bring her on the right path.

Honestly go and tell her.How bad she is for wanting a close adaptation or how selfish she is for not letting random people recreate her story .

 

[kasumigenx]

If you wanna get really technical Osabu should be the one credited as the one who created Sailor Moon.

Osabu is the one that is more protective about copyrights than Takeuchi.

 

[SM458]

Animation people:

Spoiler: show

And this what killed my desire to like Sailor Moon Crystal. LOL