THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 12, 1995 TAG: 9509120040
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
Fighting evil by moonlight, finding love by daylight. . . She is the one named Sailor Moon.
``SAY IT AGAIN?'' Lee Ann Murray asks.
``Pretty Warrior Sailor Moon.''
``I haven't heard of it.''
Murray, a teacher's assistant at Centerville Elementary School in Virginia Beach, where they know about such kid fads as Pogs and Power Rangers, turns away from the phone to call to her daughters.
``Megan, have you heard of - say it again? - `Pretty Warrior Sailor Moon'? No? And Kelly, you haven't either?''
Murray speaks into the receiver again. ``I consider my kids TV gurus,'' she explains. ``Mine are saying they don't have any idea.''
She turns from the phone again to the girls, ages 11 and 8. ``It's some new TV show that's gonna be a craze or something.'' Back to the phone. ``What's it called?'' Back to the girls.
`` `Pretty Warrior Sailor Moon.' It's a show about a girl.''
And what a girl.
Sailor Moon is an animated super-heroine who saves the world each day from the powers of evil. What its Japanese originators hope will catch on is that the main action figures - five of them, wearing miniskirted sailor suits and high boots - are girls. So are many of the villains.
Sailor Moon is wildly popular with girls ages 4 to 12 in Asia and Europe. Her TV show debuted here, in a somewhat sanitized, Americanized version, Monday. Six- and 11-inch dolls will arrive just in time for a Christmas buying frenzy.
And guess what? The dolls are made by Bandai, the same company that merchandised the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers into the must-have toy of Christmases Past. Bandai knows a toy craze when it creates one. Sailor Moon has generated retail sales of $1.58 billion in Japan over the past three years. In America, the dolls will sell for $7.50 to $15.
``I cannot imagine that it's gonna be the next big craze and nobody's heard about it,'' Murray said.
Oh, ye of little faith. Advertisements for the dolls have already invaded the airwaves of children's programming. And that's the most important part. Children who will never rise at 5:30 a.m. to catch the show in this market (on WTVZ, Channel 33), will still see the commercials for the toys.
But perhaps we need a little of the plot line here. Long, long ago, the evil Queen Beryl conquered the moon people. The children of the moon were sent to safety, to Earth of the future, with no memory of their past lives. Two talking cats, Luna and Artemis (destined, in plush versions, for toy-store shelves), are the celestial guardians who must find the moon children and the moon princess.
In her normal life, moon child Serena (Sailor Moon) is a klutzy 14-year-old crybaby. Her school uniform is a sailor suit, similar to those worn by Japanese middle-school girls.
Now here's the good part. Serena (named Tsukino Usagi in the Japanese version) transforms to crime fighter Sailor Moon by shouting, ``Moon prism power, makeup!''
No joke. A 14-year-old shouts ``Makeup!'' and transforms herself into a leggy, beautiful, big-eyed super-heroine.
To move along. The show's creators gush on and on about how it provides positive role models for girls. But Sailor Moon and the other moon children (Sailors Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus) sometimes need rescuing. And who swoops in?
A man. Tuxedo Mask, a superhero who scatters red roses in his mysterious, manly wake. Can you hear the sound of feminists grinding their teeth now?
Or are those sounds coming from the adult Sailor Moon fans? They complain, in a fan-club newsgroup on the Internet, that the homosexual overtones of some Japanese characters have been removed, that the brief nude silhouettes of the transforming girls have been tidied up, so to speak, and that a moral has been added at the end of each cartoon.
Lee Ann Murray still doesn't believe the whole thing will sell. ``Not unless it caters to boys, too,'' she said. ``That's a boy thing, really. Action figures.''
Lee Ann, I'm tellin' ya, get down to a toy store right away. Avoid the Christmas rush. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
Sailor Moon, who is wildly popular with girls ages 4 to 12 in Europe
and Asia, saves the world each day from the powers of evil.
by CNB