Let’s Talk About That Kiss… (Sailor Moon Crystal Season 3, Episode 3)

Sailors Uranus and Neptune have been cited as being two of the most influential characters in fiction, not just anime, for many LGBT oriented millennials. For me, they were my first examples of homosexuality in general and served as a positive example for me of those with differing orientations. But there seems to be a divide in the Sailor Moon community as to which version of Sailor Moon represented their characters best. Was it the original manga or Toei Animation’s anime? Many have legitimate arguments for both cases, but the one I see come up the most is that Sailor Uranus (Haruka) kisses Sailor Moon (Usagi) without consent in the manga and therefore doesn’t come off as positively as she should.

I normally don’t like to talk about stories that are decades old and have already been analyzed by much more intuitive minds but this scene has been brought into question yet again with the (surprisingly good) third season of Sailor Moon Crystal. I have been asked by several of my followers on my YouTube channel, CJ Vs. Manga, to talk about this scene in particular, but I personally believe it is too sensitive a topic to talk on video and, seeing as much of what I say on that channel is fairly or unfairly misinterpreted, I will write about it here instead.

Sailor Moon Crystal Season 3 Episode 3 Review

Sailor Moon Crystal Episode 2 Review

The second episode of Sailor Moon Crystal is finally here! Having to wait two weeks for every new episode is going to be a test of will. After what I’ve seen this week, I think I can endure it. This isn’t to say that this episode was bad, but it confirmed many of my hopes and fears for this new adaptation.

Seeing as this one was mostly about Sailor Mercury, I feel there’s no better time to talk about the scout of exams or bubbles or mist or whatever she is. Back when I first started watching Sailor Moon, Sailor Mercury was my favorite. But she was a lot of my friends’ favorite.

Sailor Mercury wasn’t just popular among our group. While we bickered and fought at the chance to play pretend as her, at the same time there was probably a similar group of school children in Japan, arguing about who was going to be Sailor Mercury in their imaginary games. You see, I attended a private school that was incredibly similar to Japanese schooling. It was very odd, but I always found my school experiences to be more like Azumanga Daioh than any American cartoon. We wore uniforms, remained in the same classroom for nearly every class and, most importantly, were focused in higher education.