Clip

Since there is not just one clip of Sailormoon that can be cut down to be in the time allowance I choose to analyze an amv; which stands for Anime Music Video called “Day of destiny“ featuring the song ‘black hole sun‘. These small videos are clips of a certain show set to music that the maker or fan thinks fit’s the show and represents certain themes in the show or ones they find themselves. I thought this would be a good way to tap into some of the key elements or themes in the show instead of trying to find one clip or one episode that represents the show as a whole.

Just like in the essay “What kind of friendship? A case study of Joey and Chandler in Friends”, Iglebaek looks at the relationship between the two main characters Joey and Chandler in the daytime sitcom Friends. In the article Iglebaek uses different scenarios in the show to point out and convey the different aspects of male friendship she found between these two characters.

I plan to do the same thing by pointing out different scenes shown in this amv that are connected to the bigger ideas of friendship, good and evil, and more within the show itself.





First to set up some back information it must be pointed out that this blog and amv is mainly focused on the end of the last season of Sailormoon, which is called Stars. At the end of the show Sailormoon is pitted against her strongest enemy, Chaos who has transferred its evil energy into one of the strongest sailor senshi’s in the galaxy Galaxia. Here Sailormoon finds out that Galaxia is taking all of the sailor senshi’s star seeds; which basically are their life force or you could look at it as being their soul, to make herself the most power being in the entire star system. A key point to know that in these end scenes all of the Sailor Scouts have sacrificed themselves for Sailormoon and have given up their lives because they believe in her and their friendship. While amidst in this pain she is not only alone but she is forced to fight against Galaxia who she does not want to fight because Sailormoon believes in the power of love and friendship being the ultimate power in this world. Yet, Sailormoon actually saves Galaxia and frees her from the pain of Chaos making her good and all her friends are reborn by the love that Sailormoon experiences for her friends and her enemy in this intense moment.


If we look at the opening of the amv we see one of the characters, Rei, is looking into fire. Rei is actually a priestess and one ritual of shintoism is to fire read or to read the future through the flames. This scene sets up the tone of the season itself because Rei reads that something bad is going to happen when a sacred tree actually comes to life and goes to attack her, another thing we see is the outline of each scout being pierced through the heart which sadly comes to be true later on in this season.

Friendship:

There are many examples of friendship in this clip, one of the main one is the scene at 1:05 where we see the bruised trio of the sailor starlights banned together to help each other as they watch Sailor moon who watches her comrades die before her as they give up their star seeds, we can see the level of pain that is caused by the small yellow lights representing the thousands of star seeds that Galaxia has taken in her reign of terror as Sailormoon can do nothing but watch as her friends die to protect her. In the next scene Rei is seen crying as she tells Usagi not to worry about them as she fades away into oblivion, leaving usagi to realize that she is alone in her battle and that she is really not as strong as she thought.

Looking at the next scene it is important to note what happens next, which is the releasing of what is known as “The light of hope” which is given out from Chibi Chibi to Sailormoon, reviving her to life. Because chibi chibi gives out this important power Sailormoon is brought back from the love of her friends and her family that brings out this power to make her strong once more.

A key element being represented is that without friendship and friends no one can be strong or accomplish things by themselves. That it is through friendship that we gain our true strength to battle inner demons and protect the people that we do love in our lives. If it wasn’t for this “light of hope” than Sailormoon would not be able to gain the strength she had to get back up and save the world. This is why at the end because of her strength and bravery all of the scout are reborn and come back to protect and support Usagi after her battle with Chaos. Even the love of her life is brought back to her because of the light Usagi gives off with her belief in her bonds that she had created with others.

Good and Evil:

In this last battle between Chaos and Sailormoon we see two distinct characters that represents both good and evil. Of course Sailormoon is a symbol of good and Galaxia is the symbol of evil. There very distinct differences in their appearances to make these connections.

For sailormoon she is the embodiment of good presented with her gaining angel wings after she is revived back to life from the “light of hope” which give her the ability to fly. Also when she is dressed as her former princess self we are given a sense of someone who is in the right or is justified in their actions.

Yet, the main thing that makes sailormoon the embodiment of good is when she is completely unclothed with her star seed exposed. As sailormoon fights exposed she is completely venerable to Galaxia, she is exposed with nothing but the pure feelings in her heart that she is trying to express to Galaxia so she can save her from the evil Chaos. In this moment Sailormoon is a symbol of complete understanding and openness that we should have towards other people.

Galaxia also takes on the embodiment of evil when controlled by Chaos when in the last moments of her and Sailormoons fight she is completely black in her dress and her skin tone is pale. This dark coloring gives off an aura of evil. Also, like Sailormoon, Galaxia has her own pair of black raven wings to express the darkness that is her soul and the pain she has experience to make her turn to Chaos for power.

So the main idea of good vs. evil is that there will always be things in the world that will be apart of the struggle between good and evil. That we can’t escape from dealing with things nor can we run from the problems in our lives or the good memories we have.

Fate:

But the main aspect of this clip and amv is that we can not escape our fate and fate in general. Sailormoon does not want to fight Galaxia nor face the problems that she has been blinded too through the whole entire season until this very moment where she must fight Galaxia. It is unavoidable for them to come together and clash in an epic battle because Sailormoon must fight for her values and her way of living which is for her friends and the earth that she loves. Yet, Sailormoon does not kill Galaxia what she does is shows Galaxia that she loves this earth and loves Galaxia which allows Galaxia to be released from the pain and become her good self again as she disappears into the stars.

The main point is that if we believe in ourselves and our bonds in this world than fate will work out in our favor since we have so much to believe in. That we should just let fate have its way then we will be ok. Sailormoon could not stop herself and her fate in where her friends die, or her true love leaves her alone for months, or the fact that she must fight with all of her power against someone she doesn’t find to be evil. But it’s the faith we need in fate to show us the right way by believing in our way of life.

While there are even more symbols used through out Sailormoon to create a hegemony viewpoint of friendship and the importance it has to every person. These are just a few key points that are found interwoven in to the seems of the storyline of Sailormoon but are very important points as seen in this video amv.

For the love of Chibiusa!

I meet Steve one cold day in a little place called Ohio. Now what was I doing in a place like Ohio? There’s no real reason as what I was doing in Ohio but I know now that I would not wish to be there again if I can help it. Either way we hit it off, he is a good guy, charismatic with a typical up state New Yorker kind of attitude that made him funny. Steve is one of those all around kind of guys that while being over the top you can not help but like him and so we became friends.

One of our most common features is our like and interest in watching anime, it might seem trivial, it might even be stupid yet it is something that we just have in common. It does not make us odd, or weird or strange or even crazy (Which you could argue we are just naturally). It’s just something we like, something we enjoy and due to liking something that is seen as ‘odd’ from outside views is maybe why we became friends.

Either way we have similar taste. It also turned up that we had similar taste in what we watched growing up, most people even if they like anime or not have seen certain shows growing up, shows that have been marketed towards both Japanese youth cultures and American youth cultures. We might not know what these shows are called or what they really are about through the mass marketing of American cultural views through editing and voice changes but we enjoy them and sometimes we want to know more and see more like it and sometimes it is just another show we grow up laughing about. A certain show like this that me and Steve share a connection with and many people do is a show that was on during the 90’s and had great commercial success, Sailormoon. Now, Sailormoon was on a time when anime was just starting to break out on American television and people were beginning to notice it, this was during the time when anime was known as Japamation and was underground making it nearly impossible to get your hands on vhs that are now littering shelves in almost every video store around the nation. Here anime was something different and adult, titles were being targeted towards adults with their racy mix of violence and sexual themes that American cartoons did not even think to touch upon. Although it was hard to get your hands on yourself there was a sudden interest that picked up with the wave of shows like Pokemon where the fantasy children genre targeted anime was found to be a hit. This seem to create a certain boom which allowed shows like Gundam Wing and Sailormoon could be shown on the air. Maybe it had been the American version of Power Rangers that had done it for myself.

Although both me and Steve are interested in this genre our background vary also, I learned that as a kid Steve was not really turned away from watching any kind of shows. His mom did not try to shelter or control what he watched or didn’t watch. There was nothing he was not or banned from watching, unlike myself, growing up as a kid. He said that his mother tried to have him grow up in a house hold where nothing was really off limits.

It’s interesting that someone was given so much freedom to watch whatever he wished of popular culture, since he was not force to watch certain things. This might have been how he developed his interest in the show or this was the gateway to how he found out what it was.

Even though we share this common interest there are other things that make us different, while I was watching Power Rangers and Pokemon, Steve was watching Sailormoon, he found the show in 1995 when he was 8 years old. The show was on channel 11 for him at 6:00 a.m. where one episode was shown daily. He seems a little shy to admit that he watched every episode daily but then again I remember when I was 8 I would cover my ears at lunch so the boys I hung with would not give away the plot for the episode of Pokemon away. Since of course I had been to lazy to get up at 6 and watch the episode before school I made sure to catch it after school even if the plot had been spoiled. So maybe we are the same.

But as he was watching it, Steve told me he fell in love with it and still is to this day. That he tried to find out everything he could about the show with the invention of the internet. Of course with the popularity of Sailormoon there was t-shirts, dolls, stickers, even Christmas cd’s of the voice cast that came out in store across the countries. Rare as they might have been Steve admit to having every single piece he could get his hands on, even going to visit things called shrines which were dedicated to shows or characters of certain shows. In these websites fans could find stats of their favorite characters, images, gifs and much more to express their love for the show on the world wide web. This expression helped draw friends together allowing Steve to gain access to other fans around the country and partaking in certain fandom acts.

So I asked him, with watching the series at age 8 and the inventions of the internet it’s only natural that fans can get their hands on the original copy of the shows they love. Here fans were able to watch the original uncut Japanese version of the show where many would be surprised to know included such things as homosexual relationships, characters that dressed in drags, vulgar behavior, and death and rebirth being one of the shows major themes. With finding the uncut version of the show there are many things to happen, the show that people remember as a kid is either destroyed, or they in turn fall in love with this version of the show. Yet, Steve is an example of what a true fan is, someone who loves both versions. He told me he has every episode on dvd both of the English and Japanese version because they are separate, each being a part of his childhood and something he really enjoyed. So that makes both different and unlike each other because they hold a special part in his life.

Even though me and Steve’s histories are a bit different in our fandom for the show there are things that we both have taken from the show that are important to ourselves. We watched and saw the major theme of the show, of friendship and the importance of it to people. My favorite memory of the show is in the last season, during their final battle each scout gave up her life as a final attempt to save their friend Sailormoon because their friendship and the love for the people of earth was so important to them that they were willing to sacrifice their life for it and that the love of Sailormoon allowed each one to be re-born. It is these themes that drew us to it and we both agree that we got things out of it. That friendship could be seen and related to with our friends. Where Steve compared friendships to the character and cast of Sailormoon, or comparing people to certain characters in the show. That this show helped shape some of his view points at different things because of the themes that were presented in the show.

Even if it seems odd it makes sense also, how one show can bring people together or to shape the way they look at the world yet isn’t that a major theme in most of popular culture? Trying to either entertain or to show what someone’s beliefs are. These shows can bring people together and help develop connections as something as simple as a t.v. show.

The subject of the matter....

I have chosen one of my close friends and good diva Steve (Also known upon the web as a certain Stevie Luna Mori). Oddly enough me and Steve meet over some great pop cultural discussions in a state called Ohio (Believe me, you never want to go there!) so I thought he would be perfect for this assignment because he is so outlandish in expressing his feelings.

Steve is a 20 year old student/worker who lives in upstate NY. Steve is what we’d call an “obsessed” blogger as he partakes in reading the millions of blogs on lj and writing entries in his very own blog. While it is fun to read his blog it is easy to say that he is a celebrity reader who enjoys finding out the latest dish on celebrities in Hollywood.

Since Steve was little he was watching MTV due to his love of music, it’s how he became a Madonna fan so he thanks all of his obsessions with the birth of MTV or what it’s former self was. It was here that Steve really accounts the birth of his popular culture intake was born.

He’s also very hardcore about the internet, using it as a source to read news, watch videos, and more that he even went and bought himself a sidekick, something that is advertise for being so internet friendly that it leaves Steve never being a walk away from the interwebs. He also says this is the source for his music obsession and claims that he has a 60 kb ipod that is filled to the brink with music relating how much music really does connect with us on a deeper level. Not only does the device offer him convince but also reassures he’ll never be without his favorite artist blaring in his ear drums.

Steve is perfect for my project not only because he is a media junkie but that he has participated in many different versions of pop culture. Not only has Steve been a fan of comic books, he writes web comics, and works with flash animation for the world to see.

Besides all of these things, one of the things that really interest me and picked Steve out for me was the fact that he was really not denied any aspects of Popular Culture as a child, he tells me that his mother was open and did not keep anything from him that she deemed “inappropriate” for his to see, except for porn which has no place in this assignment at all of course. Maybe this is why Steve grew to have an obsession with the unbridle Madonna who through out her career has been known for her blunt use of sexuality and shocking escapades. Yet, this is only one theory.


My questions for Steve are:

1. In childhood what forms of media were you allowed to consume & what forms of media were you not allowed to take in?

(Steve answered this for me with his little bio he gave me but I believe it is key for setting up some of the answers afterwards)

2. How did you discover Sailormoon & what age were you at this time?

3. What were your original feelings about the show and how much did you consume of it (Such as T-shirts, stickers, talking about the show, finding fans on-line)?

4. Have you gotten to see the original uncut Japanese version of the show & if so please describe your feelings towards it & the impact it had on your memories of the English version?

5. How does watching Sailormoon impact your views of the world and people around you; has it helped shape any of your ideologies or view points?

Geppi's entertainment Museum

So, I am sure at one point in time we have all imagined a world where we’d grow up to have no problems; or to have no responsibilities but to collect comic books, or our favorite toys, to be in a sense; a “toys-R-us” kid. Today was my day, alongside with my boyfriend, to go to the Geppi’s entertainment Museum, a wonderful and quirky museum dedicated to the collection of items through out the history of pop culture. The museum is a great example of the best “toys-R-us“ kid there ever was, America. The museum itself is a nice and involved dive into the world of pop culture history from it’s earliest routes to today’s t.v. culture. Given an over all gleam, Geppi’s offers a wonderful insight to everyone’s childhood nostalgic memories of their favorite shows and characters. It also give a nice insight into the world of pop culture that molded American culture. Not only do these familiar faces of cartoon characters remind us of our childhood, they also show the ever changing face of the land we live in from the early days of Yellow Kid, where marketing to children was seen as “acceptable”, to Barbie’s of the 1980s who had over gone a complete make over to catch up with the fast pace world of the 80’s and the standards of beauty.

The museum was a fun experience but it was hard to look at every piece since there is so much things that make up American pop culture. The first room we looked at was the collection of comic books, including things such as Batman issue #1 and much more. Comic books are an interesting aspect of American culture because many of these cultural heroes reflect our society and the things that were going on in our society at the time such as the comics of the 40’s which set up American soldiers against Hitler or the Justice League fighting against the Axis of Evil. While many of us find ourselves stimulated by these images of great heroes that have powers supreme to normal people I can’t help but admit that these images bore me with their over stimulated use of this weak vs. the strong, while trying to free themselves of what held them down. Even though comic books do bore me there is a rich and lavish history with comic books and their “taboo” origins to the American public where people were warned to keep their children from them.

Beyond the hall of comics it was interesting to see the older characters that filled the pages of newspapers and the original cells of popular cartoons for Disney. As you worked the one floor museum it was over whelming to be in the center of all the media pressing in to catch your attention. The nice aspect of the museum was that each room went in order by time period. One room was filled with old puppets from the classic Howdy Doody show, to images of I love Lucy which featured one of the strongest female comedian of the time. Another held classic StarWars toys and Magnum P.I. figurines. The museum was a nice mixture of the birth of mass media to the pop culture of today through the artifacts we giggled over, laughing as we remembered toys we played with as kids.

Yet, as much as we did get a good kick out of talking about G.I. Joe, star track board games, and having to peel the boy off the (I’m sure) bullet proof fan boy sensitive glass casing of the comic books, it was fascinating to see how cultural norms change, even if it is slowly, but change so much that it becomes reflected in toys we love as children. Also it was fascinating to see how much we consume as buyers. Buying into the fact that we need things to make us feel complete, whole, and in tact. It also is amazing to think that one person wanted to pressure the childhood of thousands of people by putting these small trinkets on display. Come from a McDonalds pack, or the limited linings of conventions of just toys stuffed into an attic each piece of the museum breathed with it’s own special form of life.

One of my favorite things was to look at all the posters on the walls of the old nickelodeon theatres which covered a wide range of material from mysteries or westerns. These pop art covers are amazing to look at with the way they styled them and the text they used to advertise the “motion photos.” Another one of my favorites was to look at the nickel and dime paperbacks that were made up of detective stories and stories of heart break. These stories allowed people to escape their world for a bit and to enjoy something much more than their own life.

The Geppi museum was a good experience in understand some of how pop culture of American is a living thing that is always changing and will never be one steady thing.

My topic for the semester

The topic that I choose to do for the semester is actually going to be Sailormoon, a familiar show that many of us remember from our middle school days.

I choose to do this because the editing of the show from it's original Japanese language is very interesting in pop culture and how American culture views "cartoons" and what is ok for American audiences to see or not see.

Many gender and episodes were cut from the original show for American audience (such as random fact #1: in every season of the popular show all of the sailor scouts died and were reborn with no memory of their former superhero fighting selves).

Introductions can be so akward, can't they?

I guess the first business in order should be to say Hello.

My name is Katie, yep I'm that funny girl that has blue hair in your class, and I am currently kinda...sorta...a freshman or something like that? I hate to say it but I lack motivation in figuring out what to do with myself as I sit in college limbo land and I am not really sure if I have enough credits to even be consider anything else but a freshman next semester. It's not that I don't care or I'm apathetic, it's just life is just kinda crazy and one step must be taken at a time and I think attending every class is a virtue in itself. I like to take the path a little off to the side and just enjoy the time I do have on this big blue ball we call a planet.

Hm...I like to dance down the walk ways of stores and make people laugh when they get me out of my shell (I'm so hella shy), I love to dance in general, I am a huge nerd who loves to read books, learn about history, hang out in art museums, check out the slick beautiful city of B-more, listen to club and light hearted rap, watch that old skool Japanimation, go to comic stores, play games TERRIBLY (down with the wii!), I babble on, I feel like an idiot allll the time, I admire people of strength.

I have a double major in Anthropology and in Modern Language and Linguistics centered in the area of Japanese (yeaa I'm slick nerd like that). I am also aiming for a minor in Journalism because I hope one day to work for National Geographic the magazine and I lack any hope of doing it right now. If not then I'd like to write and do independent field work in cyber cultures and tattoos (odd I know but the history of tattoos is much more fascinating then you would originally think)

Which is the main reason I am taking this Pop culture class. Despite really enjoying my last class with Professor Snyder pop culture is my main area of focus in Anthropology and instead of playing with wild crazy cultures in the beautiful lush wild life I plan to check out what creates subcultures in pop culture and even the anti-culture subgenres such as the punk, hippie, and not limited to myspace culture that make up and form our current pop culture around us and in many different countries. I think it's important to look at pop culture as a whole and it's a great experience to learn where others come from before us since trends like to make that little loop around, right?

As for my pop culture consumption....hm...I use my computer a lot because I am into a lot of rare and odd things so it's easy to find things I like while using the fast interwebs that we all have come to use every single day. Also, I can not lie I am slightly into those internet trends that go floating around, I will let out a 'wtfmate' or a 'Trogdorrr!' (if you know what this mean then thank you, who ever you are) or even a 'wtfbbq11!1"

I listen to toooooonnnnnnsss of music and find that to be one of my biggest pop culture consumption. Anything and everything from foreign bands to Americano and hip hop and jazz. I am not picky about music and try to take a great interest in finding all kinds of rare music and enjoy the indie scene that has been forming.

I don't watch TV. and neither do any of my room mates basically. I find it kind of boring unless I am watching some kind of special on Discovery and N.G.C. yet I do have some guilty pleasures with it.

Like every American teenager I enjoy using my myspace and my own Lj being able to add people and talk to people all over the world is amazing because it shows you that you're not so alone out there.

For my media project, I am sure most of you can remember this from middle school, I am writing about Sailormoon (yes the girls with magic wands and they fought like girls do) but it will be interesting, promise?


Ok, so that’s me in a nut shell, please enjoy reading this, I’m sorry for taking a moment of your time.