Contemporary Issues in Fictional Media
Why Sailor Moon is the Greatest Manga yet Written
By Matthew Abely
...Usagi Tsukino finds out that that she is the once and future queen, the reincarnation of Princess Serenity, daughter of Queen Serenity of the ancient Moon Kingdom, prophesized to become NeoQueen Serenity of the Silver Millennium. It would all be great news, except she only finds all this out because Earth is invaded by a succession of four empires that see the planet as a great source of raw materials and slaves, and only she and other reincarnations of the Moon Kingdom/Silver Millennium’s Sailor Guardians, or Sailor Scouts, can access the magic needed to stop these powers. Usagi and each of the other reincarnations are teenage girls, however; already burdened by the fact that they all, to one degree or another, want to be free to be feminine women on a macho man’s Earth.
The Earth would seem to be doomed; how can there be strength in femininity? The Moon Kingdom and its ally the Ancient Earth Kingdom were kingdoms by choice and title alone. Their economies seemed to have been based on community building via self-actualization and cooperation over competition. People seemed relate to each other by compassion and partnership over fear and dominance. They fell in battle with alien invaders, so too did the Iroquois League, Minoan Kingdom, and Etruscan Civilizations, the communities and commons privatized by the Green Revolution like the Punjab (and more) in India. At least, this is what is said over and over about these or any civilization and economy built around feminine instead of macho values. Usagi and her friends prove this wrong.
As individuals, the Scouts lack raw muscle and resilience; however they make up for it. They serve each other in their moments of weakness, building trust and community:
Having friendship and support and a sense of accomplishment from helping each other, makes them care little to nothing about trying to prove themselves and femininity worthy, and with that suddenly they have newfound energy and so strength:
The Moon Kingdom only had to sacrifice itself in order to prevent their conquerors from claiming the Earth because, unlike their reincarnations, they did not anticipate backlash towards their efforts to build peace. Usagi, as Sailor Moon, and Sailor Scouts of the future Silver Millennium, however, defeat each of the four conquerors that come their way. Three of whom were the same ones that struck the Moon Kingdom. They also save the entire universe from a would be empress, Sailor Galaxia.
Convinced that the only way to the good life is for there to be no more death, destruction, suffering, and conflict, whether it is violent or not; Galaxia turns “lesser peoples” into her infinite energy source for conquering the god chaos. Usagi defeats her, because she and the Earth served and built trust with enough others throughout their other battles to be able to fight a war of attrition on a galactic scale—without much violence. Usagi embraces the god of chaos Galaxia sought to overpower, merging with it, making it so that life and it can relate to each other without so much violence. She defeats Galaxia and reincarnates most of the people Galaxia converted into raw energy in this process:
This is how patriarchy and rape culture are eradicated. 200 million women may have been killed and enslaved thanks to the Green Revolution and One Child Policy, yet that has not destroyed every woman. Dr. Vandana Shiva started by serving, conducting research for, and chronicling the efforts of the woman of the Chikpo Movement to stop rain forest destruction in India; they saved 200,000 acres of forest. The trust and community she and they built, built Navdanya, a research university and seed bank for local organic farming with…
“…a primary membership of more than 6,50,000 farmer families and has established 111 Community Seed Banks (CSBs) in 17 States across India…2,00,000 farmers have been converted to organic farming in different parts of the country…Navdanya has trained about 500,000 farmers, conserved 3,000 varieties of rice…500 land races of paddy, 150 land races of wheat, 11 land races of barley, 5 varieties of barnyard millet, 10 varieties of oats, 6 varieties of finger millet, 3 varieties of foxtail millet and 7 varieties of mustard…12 genera of cereals and millets, 16 genera of legumes and plants, 50 genera of vegetables, 7 genera of oil yielding plants, 13 genera of spices and condiments, 20 genera of aromatic plants, 54 genera of fruit and flower yielding plants and 250 genera of ornamental, timber and medicinal plants.”
The same holds true for all those movements and civilizations thought too feminine to survive. They did not all just die; their efforts merely stop being reported upon:
This essay was first submitted for publication to Bitch Flicks their 2013 Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists Month, which began 20 December 2013. It was republished on FanBros.com
Its thesis was based on the theories and writings of Tumblr users: http://adventuresofcomicbookgirl.tumblr.com/ andhttp://intersectionalfandom.tumblr.com/, and the Junot Diaz episode of the FanBros Show.
There is little stopping the rest of us from becoming so great. Online, this is why I am building this site, so people can find links to socially conscious works of fantasy, science fiction, comics and cartoons, anime and animation. In the real world I will create a book club that discusses the justice themes of the genre fiction being held and protected by their local libraries, as well as volunteers with justice organization and campaigns going on in their area. Key expansion: a public progressive street zine/newspaper. I hope this essay inspires others to do likewise.
Rebuilding communities around cooperation and trust is not easy, however, if teenage girls like Madoka Kaname, Usagi Tsukino, and in our world, Malala Yousafzai, can do this on top of all else they have to deal with, like being shot by the Taliban: