Was the Sailor Moon manga popular/influential enough to warrant Crystal?

[Leia the Rebel]

This place has been a modless hell hole for several years. We all complained about Kerochan’s handling of being a mod, but at the very least she was able to reign in members who had a clear agenda just to disrupt, bait and rile up other members.

Like it’s hilarious that someone barges into this forum, having joined only today, with the most condescending, know-it-all attitude backed with absolutely no evidence, insulting my intelligence and then has the nerve to say I don’t have manners? But this has been the tenor and tone of this forum for a while. No wonder so many members don’t bother posting here anymore.

Kero abused her mod power, she bullied people on here. Like the time she and Kyaa kept pointing out another member's spelling and grammar errors in a fan fic, and not in a "Hey you made a few errors, would you like some help" kind of way. Even after being asked to stop they didn't and when that members stood up for themselves they were banned.

but sure she was great /S

 

[Sailor_Art]

The Sailor Moon sold really well in the 90s yes - BUT not so much since it’s revival from 2003.
In 2019, we could still find the 2003-edition manga in Animate at Akihabara (where thousands of customers come everyday) in a shy spot of the floor by the 80s/90s manga section.
While Banana Fish which had just finished its anime-run a few months back had a special corner (which btw was a best-seller for while now after selling really well for over 4 years according to Kinokuniya’s official Twitter).

So no - nowadays in Japan people are not interested in buying an nth edition of the manga and even searching JP manga sales record sites for the manga’s different editions, there’s none - meaning it wasn’t meaningful enough.

I'm sorry but this comparison makes no sense.

Banana Fish had it's first anime adaptation in 2018 so even tough the manga is from the 80's-90's, it was basically a new product for this generation cause it never had an anime adaptation before.

Sailor Moon had a huge succesful 90's anime adaptation so everyone knew it already + a live action + musicals and content trough all these years. The manga is the same as it was in 1997 and as they said already sold millions of copies.

You can't expect a shojo manga from 1992 to be a huge boom today after 25 years with a story that hasn't changed a bit and has already been consumed for millions of people in the last 2 decades.

Anyway: Sailor Moon Manga keeps having " new " editions in Japan every 5 years aprox so I guess it is still selling ok. I think it's the only shoujo manga out there which have had so many editions to this day and is still being reprint 30 years later.

Is it a boom sale nowadays? Of course not. But if it wasn't profitable they wouldnt keep going making new editions... right?

 

[Masquerade]

Kero abused her mod power, she bullied people on here. Like the time she and Kyaa kept pointing out another member's spelling and grammar errors in a fan fic, and not in a "Hey you made a few errors, would you like some help" kind of way. Even after being asked to stop they didn't and when that members stood up for themselves they were banned.

but sure she was great /S

I'm glad that ***** is gone.
She liked to give warnings to people who called her out on her BS.

 

[Neo King Rose]

she gave us all a hard time it's one thing to be a stickler to the rules but she treated it like gospel
I tried to be a stickler when I was mod cause I thought it was the right way to go but sometimes I felt like I went too far
would I mod again heh one day maybe but for now I'm a civilian Chiba who drinks and shares his thoughts
I want to take this time to apologize to anyone I drove away with my modding just know it was cause I was trying to keep the peace and nothing personal

 

[NeoJupiter]

I'm glad that ***** is gone.
She liked to give warnings to people who called her out on her BS.

Ahh the "good" ol'days lol. I remember I got a warning for using the english names of the characters and they said I was trolling.

 

[Neo Queen Serenity]

I'm glad that ***** is gone.
She liked to give warnings to people who called her out on her BS.

She harassed me in PMs over fanart credit and when I told her some very personal issues she called me a liar and said she wanted nothing to do with me.

 

[FloraKiraraHime]

I'm glad that ***** is gone.
She liked to give warnings to people who called her out on her BS.

I'm also glad she's gone!

 

[Talentless Fool]

I'm sorry but this comparison makes no sense.

Banana Fish had it's first anime adaptation in 2018 so even tough the manga is from the 80's-90's, it was basically a new product for this generation cause it never had an anime adaptation before.

Sailor Moon had a huge succesful 90's anime adaptation so everyone knew it already + a live action + musicals and content trough all these years. The manga is the same as it was in 1997 and as they said already sold millions of copies.

You can't expect a shojo manga from 1992 to be a huge boom today after 25 years with a story that hasn't changed a bit and has already been consumed for millions of people in the last 2 decades.

Anyway: Sailor Moon Manga keeps having " new " editions in Japan every 5 years aprox so I guess it is still selling ok. I think it's the only shoujo manga out there which have had so many editions to this day and is still being reprint 30 years later.

Is it a boom sale nowadays? Of course not. But if it wasn't profitable they wouldnt keep going making new editions... right?

In case you don't know, Banana Fish has had a cult following in Japan ever since it started. It contributed a lot to both the shoujo and BL genre. In Japan, its basically what Dragon Ball is to the west in the shoujo department. But whatever...

 

[Talentless Fool]

I though Sailor Moon (the entire franchise, not just the manga) was the shoujo DBZ equivalent in both the West and Japan?

Sailor Moon is the DBZ shoujo equivalent in the west but not in Japan.
Like I said, BF contributed a lot to the manga industry and shaped a lot in both the Shoujo and BL Genres. Banana Fish is enjoyed by both male and females from a large age group and that despite the manga is extremely dark with real life tropes - hence why it only had a CD Drama and obscure theatre play before 2018.
When the anime aired, yes it attracted new viewers but it was a national success - even getting the Tokyo Anime Awards and for the 3 years after its anime-run had lots of collabs, exhibitions and new art each couple of months, - unlike Crystal that since the third season barely has any extra commercial art.
Sailor Moon, while being a very good success, didn't contribute much to the manga industry - the magical girl manga trope never being a sub-genre - apart from the anime that created a boom for magical girl animes that soon died to be revived in the 2000s via Precure.

 

[Talentless Fool]

Did it not literally create the trend/trope of a Sentai Team of Magical Girls? Before Sailor Moon the Mahou Shojo was solely singular girl focused.

What are the major manga Magical Girl Series that we've had since then? Magical Knight Rayearth, Doremi (anime by Toei), Precure (anime by Toei) and?
Again, at risk of going off-topic, I'm talking about how the manga during its run and afterwards directly or indirectly influenced the manga industry (and not anime adaptations inspired by it like Madoka).
Moreover, considering the manga is selling so well that it needs a new edition every 5 years to satisfy the fan demand, wouldn't there be a publisher catching on it's success and making it's own magical girl manga series, especially considering nowadays there are so many talented artists (since by members of this forum's logic, the manga is doing very good).

 

[Tsundereshipper]

What are the major manga Magical Girl Series that we've had since then? Magical Knight Rayearth, Doremi (anime by Toei), Precure (anime by Toei) and?

Wedding Peach, Mermaid Melody and Tokyo Mew Mew?

 

[Talentless Fool]

Wedding Peach, Mermaid Melody and Tokyo Mew Mew?

Granted, Mermaid Melody and Tokyo Mew Mew with a run of 6-7 volumes were good successes for a niche genre but they also were published in Nakayoshi during the same time frame 2002-2003 possibly catching on the success of Magical Doremi.

 

[Tsundereshipper]

A continuation based on current talk from the main Cosmos thread, discuss:

Has the Sailor Moon manga’s influence perhaps been overstated/estimated?

 

[Neo King Rose]

sure but despite that the Manga is better in every way than crystal could ever hope to be
it doesn't hold back it doesn't have the shittenou x senshi filler Naoko's art looks better in Manga form
this is not a bash I'm stating my opinion
while I prefer the Manga over Crystal I prefer the 90s anime over the manga
was it influential to warrent Crystal's existence? yes! but did Crystal itself measure up? heck no - at least not the first/second season

 

[Tsundereshipper]

sure but despite that the Manga is better in every way than crystal could ever hope to be
it doesn't hold back it doesn't have the shittenou x senshi filler Naoko's art looks better in Manga form
this is not a bash I'm stating my opinion
while I prefer the Manga over Crystal I prefer the 90s anime over the manga
was it influential to warrent Crystal's existence? yes but Crystal itself didn't measure up? heck no - at least not the first/second season

I think also perhaps the problem is that the manga’s format just doesn’t lend itself well to a direct 1:1 adaptation because it’s so fast-paced and the flow is completely different for what we’re used to in Television.

What works for one medium doesn’t necessarily work or translate well to another.

 

[Talentless Fool]

Look I'm gonna be repeating myself but yes the manga was succesful but like every other manga series (Saint Seiya, Dragon Ball, Rurouni Kenshin) it's popularity slowly faded away as new mangas came out in Japan.

However, compared to those other mangas which have had not only manga sequels and spin-offs but also anime spin-offs as well and thus have acquired a true franchise revival, Sailor Moon has forever remained in the shadow of the 90s anime (which frankly past the 1st season has major shortcomings) and a stubbornness of having a 1:1 adaptation of the manga that itself has its story issues.

The manga works very well as a reading medium - in your mind you can easily fill in the blanks especially since most of the time the characters' hair are flowing with a blank background; you can make your own idea of the flow of time happening during the events related.

1)Was the manga warranted an anime adaptation - Yes
2)Was, like the international fanbase, Japanese fans wanting adamantly a manga anime version - Not really, they were already having the musicals and PGSM, they were satisfied and the lack of viewership for Crystal 1/2 speaks volume.
3)Was the manga supposed to be reproduced as a 1:1 adaptation - Not at all!
4)If the people at Toei had given full directive to Takeuchi, would she have explained more lore - I don't think so - the Shintenno pairing was already mentioned before and except that she has never voiced about anything else, like the Witches 5 levels meaning, UraNep being princesses (with or without kingdom?) yet in Infinity supposedly lonesome soldiers stationed at their planets similarly to Pluto (who's whole existence is a plot hole).

What Sailor Moon deserved was a true revival, perhaps batches of 25 episodes for each arc, taking inspiration from the manga and 90s anime and Takeuchi being more open to work with the anime staff and actually think and elaborate on the lore of her own manga and help create an overall quality-driven anime.

 

[Tsundereshipper]

ook I'm gonna be repeating myself but yes the manga was succesful but like every other manga series (Saint Seiya, Dragon Ball, Rurouni Kenshin) it's popularity slowly faded away as new mangas came out in Japan.

Continuing off our previous discussion do you really think the Sailor Moon manga wasn’t a major influence across the entire manga industry? Forget about just Mahou Shojo (of which I provided 3 specific examples that were directly inspired by Sailor Moon with Wedding Peach, Mermaid Melody and Tokyo Mew Mew) even regular shoujo mangaka were already taking cues from Naoko come the manga’s immediate aftermath.

This was deleted back in the main thread but I mentioned how Fruits Basket pretty much rips off the incestuous Usagi/Mamoru/Chibi-Usa 1:1. A plot element you’ll only notice taking obvious influence from Sailor Moon (the manga in particular, where Usagi’s jealousy of her own daughter is both much more overt and taken seriously) if you read watch it.

The mangaka for Fruits Basket Natsuki Takaya has said she already had the entire plot outlined from the start, she wasn’t just making stuff up as she went along like Naoko did.

Fruits Basket debuted in 1998, only 2 years after the Sailor Moon manga ended, with a preposterous incest coded “mother jealous of her and her husband’s own biological daughter plot” that had never been featured in any manga or anime prior to Sailor Moon’s release… (at least not any of I’ve heard of, and I’ve read a lot) You do the math.

3)Was the manga supposed to be reproduced as a 1:1 adaptation - Not at all!

FMA Brotherhood, Fruits Basket 2019, and Tokyo Mew Mew New were also 1:1 direct adaptations of their manga sources, why was it okay for them but not Sailor Moon?

What Sailor Moon deserved was a true revival, perhaps batches of 25 episodes for each arc, taking inspiration from the manga and 90s anime and Takeuchi being more open to work with the anime staff and actually think and elaborate on the lore of her own manga and help create an overall quality-driven anime.

Unfortunately that would’ve never happened because Precure has already taken Sailor Moon’s crown and ain’t no way is Toei gonna invest much in a competitor to their own currently reliable cash cow. Naoko being so anal with her rights to the franchise now and them being forced to deal with her if they were to ever consider a revival also probably doesn’t help and is deemed too much trouble for what it’s worth in Toei’s eyes.

 

[Talentless Fool]

I don't think we can count the 'incestuous' storyline as a positive addition to the manga industry...

Going back to Banana Fish, the character of Ash helped to counter the trope of the fetishized pretty foreign blond boy who either was effeminate and cultivated in shoujo mangas or the submissive character in yaois.
Ash despite being a pretty boy is actually highly intelligent, physical strong and of extreme wits to be able to live inside the world of drugs and mafia and Eiji despite being a rather masculine boy is soft-spoken, gentle and despite being a damsel in distress, unlike Mamoru (ironically both voiced by Nojima) actually strives to stand on his own in danger and willing to die and kill for Ash should he be forced to.
It was one of the first positive depictions of male/male relationship in the history of manga with a whole manga centered around this relationship.

Moreover it was during a time when the rape trope was popular in yaoi mangas, and Banana Fish helped counter this mindset slowly but surely for today to have actually well-written Boy's Love manga as well as smut manga.
The main character of Ash has come in the Top 5 (over 100) most popular male characters several times throughout the 80s/90s up till recently.

When I'm talking about contribution, I'm talking about a significant concrete thing Takeuchi did (whether it was done before or not) and engrained it into her own work whether its via its storyboard, its story, lore or characters.
The Sentai Girl is a concept that she popularized but Mercury being the blue Senshi who is associated with water and wits as well as her character being most popular during the 90s anime in turn became a trope concretized adopted by several other Magical Girl shows.
Likewise, HaruMichi is culturally iconic but it's the 90s anime version that the cause not the manga whereby in Infinity they barely interact except during their intro chapter.

Fullmetal Alchemist was a much better written manga than Sailor Moon. The mangaka is even lauded as one of the best in the industry there's no comparison. Sailor Moon is a manga with 5 major arcs squished into 18 original tankobons with roughly 3.6 volume per arc. Any well written story-arc (of any genre) would take at least 5-6 volumes.
Yet, we did get a 1:1 adaptation of Dream via Eternal, was it interesting, fluid and satisfactory in the story department?

Yet, look at Bleach Bloodwar arc having 52 episodes announced or the Jojo anime that took 10 years but has now nearly 200 episodes and the adaptation still isn't over. Toei from time to time still continues to make yearly series like Digimon. Moreover, as notorious and vile Toei can be on the budget, they are always open to reboots of their shows - Saint Seiya, Digimon, Precure (which is a yearly reboot) etc.

Mark my words, after Cosmos is over, and if Takeuchi finally decides to move on after 1 or 2 years, Toei will announce a 52-ep TV reboot of Sailor Moon adapting the Dark Kingdom/Black Moon arc.

 

[MsImagination]

A continuation based on current talk from the main Cosmos thread, discuss:

Has the Sailor Moon manga’s influence perhaps been overstated/estimated?

It has not or least not the way people talk about it.The manga has sold 47 million copies that is very impressive for a shojo manga.Most best selling manga are shonen manga.The ones that are 100 million are one piece , Naruto, and Dragon Ball, and Attavk on titan.
Fruits basket manga is only 30 million.It had a close manga adaptation with only cuts.If that sold lesser copies and still got adaptation .Why would not Sailor Moon manga?

 

[Tsundereshipper]

I don't think we can count the 'incestuous' storyline as a positive addition to the manga industry...

No we can’t but it’s undoubtedly a thing the Sailor Moon manga started and influenced, for the worse.