luna-whiskers:
Since today is Naoko’s birthday, can I take a moment to talk about the sexual themes in Naoko Takeuchi’s manga? Because the topic of sexualized senshi keeps coming up as though it is something that the male animators invented. And sure, there’s a couple panty shots, a couple gratuitous moments where you think “this is for the male animator’s kicks more than for the female audience’s enjoyment.” I am thinking especially of Chibi Usa’s transformation into Black Lady, when the camera pans across her developing body and lingers unnecessarily on her growing breasts.
But I have never found the anime nearly as sexual, and sensual, as the manga. Semitransparent clothes, casual nudity, cheeky poses. It’s everywhere in the manga.
And you can go ahead and argue that Naoko did this to please her male editors (we do know that it was Osa-P who suggested she put her senshi in sailor suits, after all), or to draw in male readers, but I think we are not giving Naoko nearly enough credit if we say this. (Warning, some NSFW images under the cut.)
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Decided to reblog this, because it manages to explain so well something I noticed in the Artbook notes years ago but was never able to put into words!
Ahahaha sorry you guys, this is what you’re getting today!
So who remembers Sailor Popuri Moon?
Well, for some reason I sat down at my desk to write today’s post and instead ended up doing this instead! (I used my creative brain a lot today, so maybe that’s it?) Colors would have taken hours and sunlight not available right now, so you get a pencil sketch!
I’m actually pretty pleased with this. Usually when I try to do a strange pose it ends up either in a much milder pose than I was aiming for or with odd proportions. I think I had these in mind when I was drawing, but I didn’t look at them until afterward:
In any case, hope you enjoyed it a little!
sailormoonfanatic:
tamdrogynous:
Why does Takeuchi feel the need to put c cup breasts on her child characters? Usagi and the scouts have huge breasts for 14 year olds as it is, especially given their body types, but why does Chibiusa (who is 6 for the first half of the story) have breasts?? Why does the humanized version of Diana have breasts, despite looking about 9???
WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING TAKEUCHI.
I was thinking the same thing earlier! Maybe she just doesn’t know how to draw children. It’s even more creepy when you’re looking at manga pictures that involve Chibi Chibi and she has breasts o___O;
Seriously…
This!
Is!
WEIRD!
Actually, doesn’t Chibiusa have a pretty flat chest during the R arc? (Until the very end when she transforms for the first time and grows about five years in four seconds.)
Then with Diana… does she have an official age? Part of me wants to write it off as her being a different species altogether, haha. As for Chibichibi, she’s in a pretty weird situation to begin with, since she’s some kind of magically aged-down adult woman. Haha, I guess it never really bothered me.
Entirely out of context, though, that Chibichibi picture is kind of creeptastic.
(Source: magehenry)
Day Twenty-One - One thing you wished the show had
I took today’s prompt literally and went with something the manga had but the show didn’t. Hopefully that was the intention of the challenge’s author!
Sailor Cosmos is possibly the most mysterious character in the entire Sailor Moon mythos. She came back from a dark and distant future in which all of her friends had been killed in the conflict against Sailor Chaos. She urged Sailor Moon to destroy the Galaxy Cauldron; an act which would prevent the birth or rebirth of any future Sailor Senshi - including both Sailor Chaos and all of Usagi’s at-that-point-dead friends. She identified herself as an imperfect form of Sailor Moon, which I hadn’t realized was the source of rampant debate until I stumbled upon this tumblog. (Or possibly she’s the ultimate form of Sailor Moon? The translations were contradictory at times, and I don’t have the full Japanese original available.)
As for me, I have no idea wether or not Sailor Cosmos is supposed to literally be Usagi. What I do know, however, is that she never appeared in the anime.
Stars differed from its original manga form moreso than any other arc of the anime. Eight characters that I can think of were omitted from the Stars anime, as was the entire Galaxy Cauldron/Zero Star Sagittarius plotline. In place of all that was a greater focus on Shadow Galactica and on Sailor Galaxia herself.
I don’t know what path the anime would have taken had Sailor Cosmos been included. Nevertheless, the lost opportunity to have more light shed on this beautiful, powerful, and mysterious form of Sailor Moon is truly a sad one.
(manga scans courtesy of The Oracle; beautiful artbook scan courtesy of Manga Style; 30 Day Sailor Moon Challenge by fyeahsailormoon, though since it’s unavailable there currently I’ve been using the copy over at rara avis)
