I finally got a bit of time off college-related projects and it has been a while since I last posted anything. I might not have even posted last year... Needless to say I'm glad a new year has started.
Last Summer I got myself back into anime after a while of not picking up any series. I decided to watch Sailor Moon in what felt like the first time. My latest watch was back in 2011 when a TV channel decided to do a rerun of the Portuguese dub; not counting Crystal, which I did watch while it was airing. I went all the way through the original anime, watched the 2003 live action, and finished with a rewatch of Crystal.
It reminded me that Sailor Moon is one of my favorite series and will probably always be. My tastes may have changed, but my love for the overall series hasn't. For example, I used to be a huge fan of the last season (Stars) and preferred Seiya to Mamoru as Usagi's love interest. Now it is actually my least favorite season and I like Mamoru very much.
My favorite character is Chibiusa/Sailor Chibimoon and hence I love the SuperS/Dream arc and I'm excitedly counting the days until I'm able to watch the most recent Crystal movies. However, since J-Canuck has already covered the theme songs for that season, I am actually going with the most recognisable song of the Stars season: "Nagareboshi e" (流れ星へ) by the Three Lights (スリーライツ). Maybe some people will recognize it as "Search for your love".
Three Lights is a fictional boy band composed by the characters Seiya, Taiki and Yaten Kou, also known as the Sailor Starlights. Their voice actresses are the late Shiho Niiyama, Narumi Tsunoda, and Chika Sakamoto, respectively, the latter of which is mostly known for her role as Pikachu. The characters gender-bend in the anime for some reason, but in the manga they're girls who dress in suits to perform. Either way, their goal is to find the missing princess of their home planet Kinmoku through their songs.
As I was picking up info for this post, I found out the composer for this song is Kisaburo Suzuki, the man who also created one of my favorite idol songs, Akina Nakamori's "DESIRE ~Jounetsu~". "Nagareboshi e" is a lot slower, however, and you can definitely hear some of the 80's AOR inspiration. The lyrics were penned by Sailor Moon's author Naoko Takeuchi, as she often did with the anime's songs, and Kazuo Otani was responsible for the arrangement.
Although the song is dedicated to the Kinmoku princess, it is used in many scenes presenting Seiya's unrequited love for Usagi. As much as I think Stars fades towards earlier seasons, one of the aspects it handles particularly well is those two characters' confused relationship.
I hope this year's massive marketing campaign for the new Sailor Moon movies bears fruit and that we can see a Crystal version of Stars soon enough. Not only do I want some aspects of the manga to be adapted to moving pictures, I also wish for more Sailor Moon media to be released. I might be in luck, considering it's one of the most profitable franchises in the world.
Hello, Joana. Good to hear from you again and thanks for the article. I remember catching some of the episodes during the year of the Three Lights while I was living in Japan. Hearing the full version of "Nagareboshi e" was quite revealing in that it does capture some of that 80s AOR and also the Takarazuka Revue. It was quite the big gun to bring in Suzuki!
ReplyDeleteMy favourite year for "Sailor Moon" was probably the one which introduced Sailor Neptune and Uranus and returned Chibi Moon. Lots of humour in that one, especially the funniest scene to involve a sleeping foot. :) Still, seeing Usagi and Seiya on that crazy date was also fun to watch.
Hi, J-Canuck! Thanks for the comment.
DeleteAh, I love that season as well! I think it's the most well balanced in terms of drama and comedy. But I personally can't help but feel biased towards the season that has the most Chibiusa screentime, and I love her story with Helios.