Last week’s episode of The Simpsons, “Married to the Blob” which first aired January 12th 2014, contained a Sailor Moon reference! The episode’s plot revolved around Comic Book Guy falling in love with a Japanese woman named Kumiko. During a montage of them galavanting around town and falling in love the two of them are seen cosplaying at the Bi-Mon Sci-Fi Con. Kumiko is wearing a Sailor Moon inspired costume while Comic Book Guy is dressed as the Stargate. The costume does not look like that of any specific Sailor Soldier. It’s colours somewhat resemble Sailor Saturn or Sailor Mercury’s Sailor Fuku but the pigtails are clearly meant to be reminiscent of Sailor Moon’s, though they are black and not blonde. It’s unclear if this is meant to be an authentic costume of a show in The Simpsons universe which is simply Sailor Moon like or if Kumiko is wearing a costume of her original character based on the series Sailor Moon which would in that case fully exist in the Simpsons world.
The episode is riddled with comic and pop culture references including special guests Stan Lee and Harlan Ellison. In this same scene Kumiko even jumps through the Stargate and turns into a Wizard from Hogwarts from the Harry Potter franchise.
This is not the first time Sailor Moon has been referenced on the Simpsons. Back in 2003 Lisa was dressed as Sailor Moon in the intro scene for the episode “‘Tis The Fifteenth Season”. More recently in 2011 in the episode “Holidays of Future Passed” we see a number of Christmas photos throughout the years. 5 years in the future, when Lisa is 13, she is dressed in a purple Sailor Fuku that is similar to Sailor Moon’s outfit, pigtails and all.
Here are a few other images from the scene in question.
The montage was accompanied by the song PONPONPON by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, a song who’s video went viral for being this:
The episode also included references to a ton of Hayao Miyazaki movies. Here’s Otto as the Cat Bus from My Neighbour Totoro.
References: WikiMoon, Save Our Sailors, The Simpsons Wiki
In LatinAmerica the Lisa Moon reference was really funny since Lisa and Usagi were dubbed by the same actress