The latest two episodes of Sailor Moon S are now available on Hulu and Neon Alley. This week two of the Sailor Guardians are targeted as first Makoto and then Ami have their Pure Hearts stolen by the Death Busters.
Episode 96, Coldhearted Uranus: Makoto in Danger, has Makoto infatuated with Haruka. Makoto and Usagi are walking across the street on the appropriate crosswalk when Haruka flies in on her motorcycle. In her usual protective ways Makoto dives on Usagi to protect her, injuring her hand in the process. It’s clear here that Haruka has committed a traffic violation of some kind as she stops right in the middle of the pedestrian cross walk. What if this had been a child crossing the street? Or Luna who seems to spend a great deal of time in the middle of the road? Makoto is totally crushing on Haruka as she gets involved in a complicated scarf returning situation with her. The attraction is not in the slightest bit subtle. Usagi and her friends are concerned with this as Makoto gets targeted by this week’s Daimon and in doing so somehow gets Haruka’s attention. Another joke is thrown in here about Rei having a magazine with a lady with a moustache on the cover. It’s called “All Girl Review Picture Album”. I can’t say I really understood what this reference was actually about back in the day but I believe it is something similar to the all female actor troupes like those appearing in the latest Sailor Moon musicals. Makoto eventually explains her fascination with Haruka as being a sort of admiration, but it’s a bit hard to ignore the lesbian attraction that is fairly clearly demonstrated in this episode. This season has a lot of that. At one point the issue of the young Haruka driving is addressed. Haruka explains that she got her license abroad, but this appears to be a complete lie. The answer, it seems, is that Haruka is driving illegally.
Episode 97, The Labyrinth of Water: Ami Targeted, is of course all about Ami. She spends a lot of time swimming yet it’s her friends that get the flack for her ignoring her studies! A jerk teacher tells her that she needs to spend less time hanging around reprobates like her friends. We can only assume this mostly means Usagi and it’s really just Usagi and Minako that are terrible at school. Rei attends a fancy school which we know next to nothing about and we don’t really know how Makoto’s grades fare despite her living alone and supporting herself mysteriously. Usagi thinks that the best thing for Ami is for her to be isolated from her friends so that she can concentrate on her studies. This is a bit silly of course as she could have simply left the country to concentrate on her studies during the last season but chose not to. Ami swims a lot. Then she races Michiru, who is upset she didn’t give it her all. This is funny when we learn in SailorStars that Haruka always paces herself when Michiru runs. On a rematch they both go all out which Ami finds satisfying. A semi joking scene at the end of this episode insinuates that Ami is attracted to Mamoru. Does anyone ship these two? They hardly have the well established relationship that Mamoru and Rei share.
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Just to let you guys know you can also preorder sailor moon r part one on Amazon now
I still haven’t even bought the other two. *sigh*
I already own the anime on DVD back from ADV and Pioneer…but I want to own it again on Blu Ray…maybe there will be a contest someday to win them all.
Thanks Travis! I’ll keep that in mind.
Some people say that sexuality is more of a spectrum rather than a set thing, and there is plenty of evidence to support this(I’ve seen some of that proof in my personal life). I think maybe these episodes showing the girls attracted to Haruka and Michiru might be playing with that.
I think you are probably right that they wanted to show different sides. But People also forget that even asexual people can develop close admiration for others without it being sexual.
There are many times that we in the west automatically label everything as gay, straight, sexual when in the east they don’t really get caught up on it in the same way. You just don’t tend to see very much of deep admiration and bonding in the west unless it is sexual…a shame really since there are all kinds of relationships to be explored and had outside of ones that involve sex and romance.
Labels exist for a reason but they can also really suck and limit us.
I honestly think if Haruka had opened the door, Makoto might have went for her that way, but at the same time I don’t see Makoto as even being bi. Wasn’t this really the only episode to ever imply it?
I think she was maybe Haruka-sexual just for this episode. Just like the other girls were at one time or another.
Of all the characters Makoto is generally portrayed as being more boy crazy than most. She’s masculine in many ways but this is not generally reflected in her sexuality.
I think there are some hints with Makoto and Ami or at least I ship them anyway >>
I agree with this idea. I think showing people who identify as being straight showing a bit of flexibility in their sexuality is always a good thing, as well as showing gay people who have varying degrees of attraction to one sex or another. The show plays sexuality up as a bit of a joke at times but in general I think the way it’s portrayed in this season is very good.
You guys all bring up very good points. I’m glad to have had this discussion.
The one problem I have with this episode is that it seems like Usagi and her friends react to Makoto supposedly crushing on Haruka in a rather homophobic way. Rather than reassuring Makoto that they’ll love her and accept her for who she is regardless of who she’s attracted to, they seem to almost scorn her for even possibly liking another woman and basically try to convince her she should stay straight. It plays it off for laughs but it seems oddly out of character to me for Usagi and her friends who have no problems accepting Haruka and Michiru as their friends but seem like they’ll only accept Makoto if she’s into boys.
Yeah, Usagi and the others’ reaction always bothered me. A rare misstep. As people have been saying the show is usually really good about portraying these sorts of things in a non-judgmental way. I guess fictional characters are allowed to have flaws too, and it’s not unrealistic to see teenagers having that sort of reaction, but I agree it feels out of character for Usagi.
Lol at “Haruka-sexual”. It’s a useful term, since being attracted to Haruka (a very common occurrence) has never felt like it really pins down someone as having been attracted to a girl or a guy.
Also, it must have really stung when Mako found out that Haruka and Uranus are the same person, given her rather contrasting opinions of the “two” of them.
I am a gay Sailor Moon fan myself and Sailor Moon is still my all time favorite anime but I’m not entirely sure it’s as LGBT-friendly as people make it out to be. I mean, I appreciate their positive portrayal of Haruka and Michiru but other than them, who else that is LGBT gets a positive portrayal in Sailor Moon? The show seems to follow the whole “lesbians are cool and sexy and gay men are gross/evil” outdated stereotype. Most of the gay men in the show get portrayed as either evil or stereotypically feminine like the fashion designer couple in SuperS. Crossdressing and gender fluid characters like Fisheye and the Sailor Starlights always seem to be portrayed as either evil or with deep suspicion most of the time. And while manga purist fans might prefer the Starlights as cisgender crossdressing women, I’ve always found Naoko’s attitude towards the concept of the gender fluid Starlights in the anime to be troubling as Naoko seems to be implying that trans women are banned from being Sailor Soldiers.
Agreed. There’s a bit of this throughout the season. Such as Makoto’s reaction to Unazuki’s kiss or the shock of learning Haruka is a man. The series sort of plays it for jokes but when things are serious is totally cool with it. It always makes me a bit uncomfortable.
Sailor Moon is still much better at it than a lot of other anime shows are and it’s remarkably progressive for a 90s anime but people forget Japan is still a largely conservative society that strongly favors tradition and fitting in with the crowd and being LGBT is seen as undesirable because it’s viewed as being against conformity.
One thing I will say in Sailor Moon’s favor is that the Western fandom in my experience has been incredibly LGBT-friendly. I can’t speak for how the Japanese fandom is but I’ve always felt safe and accepted interacting with the fandom and never experience any homophobia from the fans and I’ve always appreciated how supportive the fandom has largely been on supporting the LGBT community.
That teacher is just ridiculous. I can’t stand adults who are never happy…even with perfection like Ami! I mean seriously, she’s the smartest girl in Tokyo and it’s still not good enough?! Ugh. I bet she’s a thousand times smarter than the teacher.
As for shipping Ami and Mamoru, I think Ami was just feeling hyper for once and found a cute way to tease Usagi.
The talk they have near the statue of Kimi-Chan implies they have a silent understanding that Mamoru doesn’t share with the other girls, but it doesn’t seem in any way romantic.
I’ve always felt that Makoto kept forgetting that Haruka was a female and was in love with her masculinity and strength rather than it being a true romantic crush. Michiru didn’t even seem jealous, but then again, Haruka is definitely the jealous one.
Michiru is never jealous and girls keep being attracted to her girl! It shows a great confidence in their relationship which I think is great. Haruka’s jealousness comes off as a bit macho which fits.
There’s an episode where Michiru show jealousy but I think is in the Star episodes, when Haruka sees Usagi sad about Mamoru and says may be she should take his place because she wouldn’t let a pretty girl like Usagi alone.
Regarding the “All Girl Review Picture Album” I think it is in reference to the famous Japanese all-female theater troupe, the Takarazuka Kagekidan or Takarazuka Revue, where some actresses from the latest musicals, like Yamato Yuuga (Chiba Mamoru/Tuxedo Mask), Hatsukaze Midori (Queen Beryl), Saika Ryo (Zoicite), Mahiro Shun (Prince Demando), and Manami Sora (Saphir), came from.