Schoolgirls begin and win: a good word about Sailor moon
On 7 March 1992, he published the first comic book about “the Beautiful warrior Sailor moon”. She has blond hair, long legs, short pleated skirt, tiara, cat, special friends, and she brings retribution in the name of the moon. In Russia, the cartoon was one of the originators of anime and mangamania.
In the mid-1990s, anime began to slowly erupt on the screens of Russian television. TV series from Japan about the characters with big eyes and long legs showed in the morning TV channel “2×2”. The on-screen action was strange, weird, unusual, but fascinating. The boys watched “Robotek” girls — the “Sailor moon”. However, in reality, the boys also secretly watched “Sailor moon”.
The first manga about “the perfect warrior” was followed by another, then the animated series, feature films, musicals, games series, new animated series, computer games, parodies, toys, and a huge industry of clothing, “how Sailor moon”.
The series has made a huge contribution to the popularization of the Japanese schoolgirl outfit. Miraculously the history of the outfit begins 170 years ago on the other side of the world, in London. Queen Victoria dressed her son, the future king Edward VII, in a sailor’s suit. Britain in those times ruled the seas and continents, and what became fashionable in London, immediately spread around the globe. And now, their children dressed up in sailors everywhere.
Russian figure skater Evgenia Medvedeva in 2016 conquered Japan with a performance dressed as Sailor moon.
Japan at that time was just beginning to open up to the world and to copy the West in everything: political structure, appliances, clothing, including school uniforms. In the West sea form students soon forgotten, in Japan preserved. At the end of the twentieth century to become one of the national symbols, by popularity, beating even the traditional kimono. But back to the actual “Sailor moon”.
Japanese girl walking home from school, and then the cat. Not simple, but magical. With its help, the girl had mastered the art of becoming a mighty warrior, who looks like the girl herself, only more beautiful, and the skirt even shorter. Transformation occurs naturally in the form of dance with a hint of erotica. Now the girl lives a double life: here she is an ordinary schoolgirl, but it protects the earth from magical enemies.
The previous paragraph did you find nonsense? To some extent, he is. But any tale in fact nonsense. “Sailor moon” the same story, only, first, modern, and secondly, popular. And to infinite series.
The idea itself is double the life of the student is not new. The magical child is a pretty common fairytale motif. The twentieth century has brought the tale at the service of business and turned them into popular culture. In Japan, based on “magical child” invented a special format — the “magical girl” (a magical girl). Here lives a girl a normal life. Lives in proteinemia, goes to school, she is likely the problem, well, something is wrong with the parents. Or learning bad. Or, conversely, too well in school, and therefore, not popular in the class.
The series
Witch Салли1966 / Japan / 25 min Mahô tsukai Sarîкомедиясемейный…
Then suddenly, whack, chug, BAM, the cat waved his magic wand, and Schoolgirls fabulous creature. In the manga and anime often manages magic it cat. This is understandable: everyone knows that cats is not so simple, besides the cat always adds to a comic or cartoon popularity. The first manga and anime in this genre is “Sally the Witch” (1966).
By the way, there are two basic kinds of magical girls: the heroine and reluctant secret agent. In the first case, the girl is really normal, but she comes across a magic mentor with magical machinery. And then like it or not, and it is necessary to protect the earth. In the second case, the girl is actually a creature from another universe that just lives in Tokyo in the body of a normal girl and for some reason lost his memory.
And then the fun begins: the magic power is really an escape from reality with its problems. There, in the magical world, you have no tensions in the family, no matter how you learn and how you have a popularity rating in the class. And a strange, pure Japanese paradox. In a Patriarchal country where, despite modernization, the world remains a male, a female warrior mostly girls. Magic world is the place where you can escape the inequalities and to create their own parallel universe maiden.
Konstantin Milchin