Lessons from
Sailor Moon
I know. You're probably looking at the title, and thinking "what the heck
does this have to do with Animorphs?" especially if you've seen the SM dub
on Cartoon Network. Well no, this does not involve those little "Sailor Says"
segments they made to pass SM off as educational content, (if you pay attention
to the bits of footage they're showing through, it can be hilarious!) nor
is there any particular thing Usagi/Serena, or any other of the Senshi/Scouts
wish to say with you. What I mean is that SM, starting off as a manga by
beloved author Naoko Takeuchi, and underwent a series of transformations
to become the thing you see on your TV screen today, went through many of
the same things Animorphs is going through now. Sadly, now Sailormoon is
mainly a cult thing, only talked about on the internet and its merchandice
only sold in "underground" type shops. Maybe if we take a look at the
similarities, though, we can learn from them.
First off, a wonderful woman named Naoko Takeuchi made a manga called Bishoujo
Senshi Sailormoon. For you Japanese deficient people, that means "Prettysoldier
Sailormoon." And what is a manga, you may ask? Basically it's a comic book.
But these manga, especially Naoko's beautiful shoujo (mainly for older girls)
works, are nothing like the Marvel products you see in U.S. stores. Manga
like BSSM is beautifully hand-drawn with great detail, and although the main
body of the manga is blackl-and-white, this, at least to me, enhances the
artistic value of it. Just look on any manga gallery to see what I mean.
The storyline, which in SM's case is a romantic fantasy, is also more complex
than what you think of a comic book having, with a basic plot and several
layers under that. Like Animorphs.
Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon grew immensly popular and a company called Toei
decided to create an anime based on it. Again, an anime is like a cartoon,
except for the depth of storyline and the quality of production, be it animation,
music, or acting. And of course, that distinctive style that grabs you as
you're flipping through the channels -- whoa, what's that! -- charactaristic
of Japanese anime. Many people who were SM/anime fans say the transition
of Animorphs from books to TV is like SM's transition from manga to anime.
And at first, I thought this too. See the advantage of an anime over a manga
-- or a TV show over a book -- is that books and other literature have to
be bought. You have to be in a bookstore to even see them, and then they
have to catch your eye, and have to have a good jacket promo, while TV is
self-promoting: everyone watches it, and you can just put on commercials
for it. People can try it whenever it comes on and see if they like it. If
so, they can continue watching.
Comparing AniTV to the anime SM and the Animorphs books to the SM manga seems
accurate at first. For example, the anime series, visually, seems less simpler.
The drawings are less complex and the characters seem less attractive. Sound
familiar? And some character development and stortylines simply weren't there,
while entirely new characters, (and developments on them) and even entire
story arcs were made unique to the anime. But this turned out to be a good
thing, since fans of the manga could still be surprised by as well as throughly
enjoy the anime. Also, there was a whole audio-visual thing that of course
you couldn't have in the manga. You could see the attacks, the massive battles,
hear the BGM's that SM is almost famous for, as well as have a capture of
the whole scene that the manga couldn't accomplish.
So similar developments should be a good thing in AniTV, right? Well . .
. I guess they would have been. These kind of things were what I was hoping
for in AniTV: new spins on a familar story, the omission or underdevelopment
of *some* characters compensated by new developments, new characters, sub-stories
and spins. And to some extent that is there. But mostly, there is the same
story, with changes that merly annoy most Anifans, and most of them were
entirely unnessary as far as I could see. And instead of getting the visuals
that we wanted, supplements for our imagination (I could have never thought
up any of those attacks wihthout seeing the anime) but for many of us, the
AniTV episodes were only a hinderance. Now I have a hard time visualizing
an Andalite properly, which is irritating because I have to visualize everything
to write fanfiction.
But I could rant on that all day.
The point was, the anime was like a goal of what AniTV should have been.
But in my opinion, it was more like the dub. See, Sailormoon became popular
around the world, and a North American company called DiC decided to dub
it into English, and SM fans cheered. The only problem is, the dubbing actors
were not exactly Emmy material, and since DiC wanted to market SM as somthing
for young children instead of teenage girls and young children (like
in Japan), they cut out footage, moulded and shaped the episodes until
practically all scenes that even slightly suggested violence, Japanese cultural
things, or innuendo, were cut out (think: toy guns, spitting, names and places,
and remarks about love letters). Dialogue was also warped, with all the original
excellently fitted voices (not to mention good acting voices) removed, the
script changed to practically removed all subtilty, changing funny scenes
into serious ones and vice-versa. They didn't even keep the original
music.
Also, there is the merchandicing and hype. There was not nearly as much with
Sailor Moon as there is now with Animorphs, but it had the same effect: it
made SM look like a little kiddie show, and embarrased to death all of its
older-than-seven fans. The only way fans could get the real thing is to order
tapes or manga over the Internet.
There was one good thing about the dub, though. Even though DiC did a lot
of things that ruined SM's body, there was nothing it could do to destroy
it's soul. The original animation (though slightly butchered), and the basic
storyline captivated millions, and the way most of them, myself included,
found out about the whole original thing was being so interested in Sailor
Moon that they went on a search engine and typed in "sailor + moon." Also,
the manga, with the text translated fairly accuratly, is now available in
the U.S. through the Mixxine magazine SMILE.
The point is, AniTV could be a good thing, if dispite all its faults, it
still draws in fans. Of course they'll mostly be younger fans, but most all
of us can trade "little-brother" stories about Animorphs. They'll go to the
bookstores looking to read Animorphs books, and inevitably get hooked on
them. ^_^ The only way I can see to avoid SM's current plight, that because
of the corporate tangle going on between the companies that claim ownership
of it the original episodes are being impaired in their transit to the United
States, is to keep involved. As in giving Scholastic and others feedback
about how we feel, so that they actually hear our concerns instead of seeing
us as a mass that represents dollars in product sales.
That's just about all. If any more eerie coincidence similaries come up between
Animorphs and SM, I'll be sure to keep you posted. But for now let's just
make sure that the same thing dosn't happens to Animorphs. Besides, for us
"older" fans, isn't it bad enough?