A new anime series started in Japan this week and it has more than a passing similarity to Sailor Moon. Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! (Binan Koukou Chikyuboeibu LOVE!), often referred to simply as Boeibu or Earth Defense Club, is a lot like other magical girl anime series only its main cast are all boys. This is quite a departure from the standard tropes of magical girl anime as they, as the name suggests, are usually about girls! If you’re curious about the series you can watch it for free on Cruncyroll. The first episode is up now for premium users. Free users can watch episodes a week after release. Episode 1 will therefore me up on Tuesday January 13th.

The characters in the show are not cross dressing or transforming into women. They are young men, students in high school, and they transform using magical bracelets which cause them to dress in pretty clothes that, although feminine, are still boys’ clothes. In this state they get a number of magic items and perform magical attacks.

Though not the first to be referred to as a magical girl series, Sailor Moon was instrumental in popularizing the genre, pioneering the concept of a team magical girls. Most magical girl series to follow it derive some inspiration from it. It’s interesting that an all boy series would inspire itself from Sailor Moon and similar shows when Sailor Moon itself was attempting to be an all girl version of a super sentai series, shows like Power Rangers, which is a type of show mostly marketed towards boys and who’s ranks were primarily filled with men.

The similarities are obvious upon the most basic investigation. Just looking at their transformation bracelets they look quite similar to Sailor Moon’s Crisis Moon Broach from the Sailor Moon SuperS episodes of the anime and corresponding Dream arc of the manga. The various transformation sequences, poses, attack items and the attacks used have a lot of similarity as well. The monsters for example will be healed after combat, restoring them to their original human form, in an attack quite similar to Moon Healing Escalation. A comparison clip was made by a fan comparing the transformation sequences to those from Sailor Moon SuperS, embedded below, and those similarities can’t be denied.

The show even has a talking animal who guides the boys on their quest, similar to Luna in Sailor Moon, this pink talking Wombat controls one of the teachers as a sort of puppet to remain free of suspicion. If this sounds ridiculous it’s because it is, and the show it quite funny. With new episodes released every Tuesday this new series is definitely one that Sailor Moon fans will want to pay attention to. With Crunchyroll releasing episodes for premium users as they are released in Japan and a week later for free, it’s quite easy to keep up with this show.

Keep reading for more screenshots from this episode.

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